FABB blames BOE for books banned statewide – The Island News – Beaufort, SC

By Delayna Earley
The Island News
After the May South Carolina Board of Education meeting, the state now leads the country in the highest number of books banned in public schools.
The number of books banned from S.C. public school libraries has now been raised to 21 books after the state Board voted to remove an additional 10 books that they had previously tabled pending further discussion in April’s monthly meeting.
More than half of the books banned were submitted for review by Beaufort County resident Elizabeth “Ivie” Szalai, who previously attempted to have a list of 97 books removed from public school libraries within Beaufort County School District and resulted in a book review process involving the community that lasted more than a year.
Szalai argues that the challenged books should be removed because they contain explicit sexual descriptions and depictions that are not appropriate for a K-12 school setting and students.
With the passage of Regulation 43-170 in 2024, which allows books that contain visual depictions and descriptions of sexual conduct to be banned from South Carolina public schools, books can be challenged at the district level and then escalated to the state level for the state board to decide.
Beaufort County School District has declined to act on the book challenges being submitted by Szalai within the required 90-day review period due to their recent review of all the challenged materials, so her challenges are being sent to the state board.
Mary Foster, a board member with Families Against Book Bans (FABB), said that while Szalai is the one who is submitting the complaints, the blame for this does not rest with her, but instead with the state Board of Education who make the final decision about how to handle the complaint.
“I think it’s important for people to know that, yes, there is one complainant, but there is an entire board and some staff at the Department of Education supporting that board who are allowing this to happen,” Foster said. “I feel like the energy of frustration with this and the desire for it to improve needs to be directed at those decision makers, not at the complainant.”
Foster said that at FABB, their mission is to fight for and advocate for intellectual freedom, which is one of the reasons why they were all so disheartened by the way the vote went in the most recent meeting, especially since the majority of the board members seemed to support reevaluating the regulation in April’s meeting since it seemed to be too vague and thus allowing for so many books to be banned.
“Most of the books being banned across the state are not used in a classroom for instruction,” Foster said. “These are books that hopefully children who have the interest in reading, who have a librarian who guides them based on their interests and life experiences and their maturity level, which are all things that the librarian is trained to take into consideration, that they would direct to these books.”
Foster said that it is also important to remember that part of the state standards for English and Language Arts is that students would self-select and read for pleasure.
“When we take away books that some kids are choosing to read for pleasure, yeah, that’s a strange mixed message to send to our kids when we tell them how important reading is,” Foster said.
Foster said that she and other FABB members have and will continue to speak to state Board members hoping that they will make moves to amend the regulation to make it fairer and clearer.
“I have spoken to board members who say like, whether or not I agree with the regulation, the oath I take when I agree to be a board member is that I will follow the regulations,” said Foster. “And so, and I get that. My response to that is, then I would ask that you work to make the regulation fairer and more reasonable. Because that’s also your job.”
Of the 17 board members, two voted against the books’ removal, Dr. David O’Shields and Rev. Tony Vincent.
Szalai did not respond to a request for comment about the results of May’s board meeting.
The 10 books that were banned in May’s meeting were “Tricks” by Ellen Hopkins; “Collateral” by Ellen Hopkins; “Identical” by Ellen Hopkins; “Lucky” by Alice Sebold; “Living Dead Girl” by Elizabeth Scott; “Last night at Telegraph Club” by Malinda Lo; “Kingdom of Ash” by Sarah J. Maas; “Empire of Storms” by Sarah J. Maas; “Hopeless” by Colleen Hoover; and “Half of a Yellow Sun” by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie.
Before May’s meeting, the Board had reviewed 17 books and had removed 11 of them: “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky; “Flamer” by Mike Curato; “Damsel” by Elana Arnold; “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson; “A Court of Thorns and Roses” by Sarah J. Maas; “A Court of Mist and Fury” by Sarah J. Maas; “A Court of Wings and Ruin” by Sarah J. Maas; “A Court of Frost and Starlight” by Sarah J. Maas; “Normal People” by Sally Rooney; and “Push” by Sapphire.
Delayna Earley, who joined The Island News in 2022, formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
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