LR5 committee will decide whether to remove library book. They may not finish reading it
The committee reviewing a book removed from school library shelves in the Midlands will have to read faster.
The Lexington-Richland 5 school board voted Monday to deny a request that committee members get a three-week extension to finish its review of the book, which was challenged by a parent’s complaint.
The challenge has a committee of nine reading “A Court of Mist and Fury,” a 2016 fantasy novel by Sarah J. Maas. The book was one of the most frequently challenged in school districts around the country last year because of sexual content, according to the American Library Association.
Most of the members of the review committee, five out of nine, have told district administrators they will need more time to finish the book, which has 640 pages. The committee — made up of parents, teachers and librarians — held its first meeting on Oct. 2, and under district policy is required to reach a decision on whether to keep or permanently exclude the book within 30 business days of receiving the complaint.
Superintendent Akil Ross asked the board to grant the readers an extension to Nov. 30. The committee is tasked with not only reading all 640 pages but also any supplementary material reviewing or examining the book’s content.
Ross said he worried an incomplete review process could come back to bite the school district. “We have First Amendment obligations,” he said. “If an author brought a case against the district, if there are concerns we didn’t follow our own policy, it’s worth the extension to take that argument off the table.”
He doesn’t want the committee to reconvene the first week of November, announce they haven’t finished reading the book, and then make a decision about it anyway. “We have one volunteer, the others have been asked to do this,” Ross said.
He said the school district only had three copies of Maas’s book in its system, and had to order six more copies so each committee member would be able to read the book in its entirety. “A Court of Mist and Fury” has already been pulled from school libraries and will remain pulled until the committee finishes its review.
But school board members were unsympathetic, skeptical that the committee could not finish the book within the time allotted. When board secretary Kimberly Snipes expressed concern some committee members would drop out if they aren’t given more time to finish the book, chairwoman Rebecca Blackburn Hines said, “We’re just giving people excuses. It’s not acceptable to give in just because an author might sue us or somebody could quit a committee.”
The board voted 4-2 to stick to the original review schedule, with Snipes and Kevin Scully voting in favor of the extension. Mike Satterfield did not vote.
Controversies around books have become more common in recent years. Last year, another review committee in Lexington-Richland 5 decided to keep the children’s book “Black is a Rainbow Color” on its shelves over objections to racial themes in the book. In the neighboring Lexington 2 district, 17 books have been removed from schools so far this year. One of those books is “A Court of Silver Flame,” a sequel to the book being reviewed in Lexington-Richland 5.
Earlier this month, S.C. Education Superintendent Ellen Weaver proposed that the state Board of Education be empowered to choose all library materials for school districts across the state in line with state instructional standards, taking those decisions away from local school districts. The proposal comes after Weaver cut the Department of Education’s ties to the S.C. Association of School Librarians because the group had vocally opposed efforts to remove material from school libraries.
