A group of bestselling authors whose books have been banned from Utah public schools are suing state officials, arguing that Utah’s sensitive materials law is unconstitutional.
Among the plaintiffs are award-winning novelists Elana K. Arnold and Ellen Hopkins. Together, their books make up five of the 22 titles that have been banned from all Utah public schools.
“We do not live in a world where no one experiences sexual assault, gaslighting or abuse,” Arnold says in the lawsuit, referring to subjects in her books “What Girls Are Made Of” and “Damsel.” Both have been removed from schools across the state.
“These issues are real concerns for teens today and pretending otherwise does them a disservice,” Arnold continued. “Teen girls do not need us to protect them from the truths of our world.”
Kurt Vonnegut’s estate, represented by the late author’s four children, is also a plaintiff in the new federal lawsuit, which in addition to state officials names as defendants a handful of individual school districts that have separately banned books not currently prohibited statewide.
Vonnegut’s 1969 anti-war novel “Slaughterhouse-Five” was removed from the Washington County School District in 2023 after its content was deemed “pornographic,” according to the lawsuit.
“Utah’s lawmakers’ determination to ban books like ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ denies innumerable young people in Utah the freedom to read, think and grow,” Nanette Vonnegut, daughter of Kurt Vonnegut, said in a Tuesday news release. “It is antithetical to what my father fought for during World War II and focused much of his literary legacy on addressing.”
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) A sign indicates a book for sale at Barnes and Noble that has been banned in Utah public schools in Salt Lake City Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024.
The state’s sweeping book removals, the lawsuit alleges, cause the authors “personal” and “professional” harm. Not only do they deprive their intended young adult audiences of “constitutionally protected literature,” but they also falsely brand that literature as “pornographic,” the lawsuit argues.
Joining the authors as plaintiffs are two unidentified Utah high schoolers, including one who says she was sexually assaulted during her freshman year.
That student sought out “What Girls Are Made Of” at school as a way to help cope with her trauma only to realize it had been banned, the lawsuit states.
“She is now robbed of perspectives and narratives that would allow [her] to process and learn from her experiences rather than being unprepared to encounter these in adult life,” the lawsuit alleges.
One of the students suing said in a statement Tuesday that “students notice immediately” when banned books disappear from Utah schools.
“For many Utah students, the first place we recognize our own lives and identities is in a library book,” the statement read. “... Book bans do more harm than simply removing stories. Empty shelves cost us understanding and connection, turning schools from places of learning into systems of control.”
Utah book ban law is ‘overbroad, content-based censorship,’ suit argues
The 59-page complaint was filed in federal court in Utah on Tuesday, a day after three more titles were added to the state’s growing list of books prohibited in all public schools.
Defendants include the Utah State Board of Education and its 15 individual members; Utah Attorney General Derek Brown; and the Salt Lake City, Davis and Washington County school districts, along with each district’s superintendent in their individual capacities.
[Read more: Utah bans three more books from public schools — including the source for a blockbuster movie.]
A spokesperson for the state school board confirmed its members had been notified and were reviewing the matter. “We remain committed to fulfilling our responsibilities under state law and supporting local education agencies in serving Utah students,” a USBE statement read.
The Utah attorney general’s office said it does not comment on active litigation. The Salt Lake City School District and Davis School District did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Washington County School District in a statement Tuesday said that, “As a school district, we have to comply with every law.”
“We are proud to be examples to our students and parents of how to be fully law abiding citizens,” the statement read.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah is representing the students and authors in the lawsuit, which demands that the state revise portions of its sensitive materials law, calling it “modern-day book burning.”
Utah is one of only a few states with a legal mechanism for removing books from all its public schools. Books that contain sexual content or nudity deemed to have “no serious value for minors” are legally treated as pornography — what state law calls “objective sensitive material.”
That includes depictions of intercourse, masturbation or touching of a character’s genitals, as well as nudity, defined as anything “less than completely and opaquely” covering human genitals, buttocks and female breasts “below a point immediately above the top of the areola.” Nudity also includes any depiction of “male genitals in a discernibly turgid state,” covered or not.
A statewide ban is triggered if at least three school districts — or two districts and at least five charter schools — determine the same book amounts to objective sensitive material.
ACLU attorneys argue the law does not allow for a book’s value to “be considered as a whole” because it criminalizes any description or depiction of human sexuality.
Under the law, “literary merit, educational value and age-appropriateness for different student populations are all irrelevant once a single passage triggers the automatic removal process, “ the lawsuit states.
Attorneys also argue that the law does not “protect students from pornography.”
“The [statewide bans] are overbroad, content-based censorship that violate the First Amendment by limiting the ideas, information and lived experiences accessible in Utah’s school libraries based on the personal preferences of the Legislature,” the lawsuit states.
Utah had standards for materials before statewide bans, suit says
Before adopting its sensitive materials law, Utah already had systems in place to prevent “obscene and pornographic” materials from entering schools, the complaint also argues.
Those systems included “trained professional librarians” who selected and maintained age-appropriate material based on standards established by the American Library Association and the American Association of School Librarians, the lawsuit states.
“These standards provided clear guidance to educators, administrators, and librarians about selecting, screening, reconsidering, and when necessary, removing materials from school libraries,” the lawsuit states.
Utah was also already adhering to the Miller-for-minors standard, the complaint notes.
That standard, also called the three-prong obscenity test, or the “Miller Test,” is the Supreme Court’s test for determining whether speech or expression can be labeled obscene, in which case it is not protected under the First Amendment.
Material is considered obscene if it appeals to prurient sexual interest; depicts sexual conduct offensively; and lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
The lawsuit argues that the books banned in Utah include award-winning works by Nobel Prize winners, National Book Award finalists and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients, signaling that they do not lack literary merit and, therefore, fail the Miller Test.
Instead, the lawsuit alleges, those books have been removed because they “acknowledge that topics like human sexuality and sexual assault exist as part of the broader human experience they explore.”
“The right to read and the right to free speech are inseparable,” said Tom Ford, staff attorney at the ACLU of Utah, in a Tuesday news release. “This law censors constitutionally protected books, silences authors, and denies students access to ideas, in violation of the First Amendment rights of students and authors alike, and must be struck down.”