ACLU-SC opposes book bans as 93 titles are challenged in Berkeley County Schools

In response to a public records request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina, the Berkeley County School District has released a list of 93 books that have been targeted for censorship in the district’s classrooms and libraries. That list is copied at the bottom of this press release.

Executive Director Jace Woodrum gave this statement:

“Book banning is an unconstitutional infringement on the First Amendment guarantee of access to information. Censorship remains deeply unpopular across the state and across the political spectrum, and we hope that the district will listen to parents, teachers, students, and librarians who support the freedom to read.”

We are glad to hear that the challenged books are still available to students pending review, and we encourage the district to continue following district policy KNBA-R (“Complaints About Instructional Materials”), which states, “Challenged material will not be removed from general use during the reconsideration procedure.”

What we know

The list of challenged books includes 12 titles by Ellen Hopkins, 10 by Sarah J. Maas, and 3 by Rupi Kaur. It includes contemporary classics such as Sarah Gruen’s Water for Elephants and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, as well as 20^th-century masterpieces like Richard Wright’s Native Son and Toni Morrison’s Beloved.

According to the records provided by the district, a single person filed all of the book challenges. Nearly all of the books were challenged on a single day, May 27, 2023. As part of the Request for Reconsideration of Instructional Material, this person indicated that she had read all 93 books herself.

The big picture

The playbook of book banners is obvious by now.

The challenged books list in Berkeley County included titles that activists in other parts of the state have targeted before. For example, pro-censorship activists attempted to ban The Kite Runner last year in Beaufort County Schools, where review committees are still going through a list of 90+ challenged books. Isabel Quintero’s Gabi: A Girl in Pieces was previously challenged in Horry County, where, similarly, a single person sought to ban a list of books all at once.

All of the titles being challenged in Berkeley County are listed on BookLooks, a site commonly used by political interest groups like Moms for Liberty to disseminate superficial talking points.

The ACLU-SC encourages parents to stay involved in the education of their children. Parents who object to a book’s content can follow established protocols at their district to exempt their children from reading it. But it would be unreasonable and unfair to hide a book from all children because one parent objects to it.

The ACLU-SC remains committed to the freedom to read and encourages anyone interested in pushing back against this wave of censorship to join Freedom to Read SC and ProTruth SC. The ACLU-SC remains involved in the federal court case NAACP v. Pickens County School District, challenging a politically motivated book ban.

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The challenged books list provided by the school district is below. In addition to the list of titles, we have received PDF copies of the forms that were submitted to challenge the books in Berkeley County Schools and will share those forms with media outlets upon request.

* All Boys Aren’t Blue was included on a list of challenged books provided by the district. However, the Request for Reconsideration paperwork provided via the FOIA request did not include a challenge of that specific book.