By Delayna Earley
The Island News
The Beaufort County Board of Education has voted to restrict nine books in Beaufort County School District libraries after a Special Called Meeting held on Friday morning, Aug. 22.
The books will not be removed from the libraries but will require written permission from a parent or guardian to be checked out at the high school level.
This marks the first time that Beaufort County has not immediately forwarded complaints made against books under Regulation 43-170 directly to the S.C. Board of Education, which they have previously done as the books that have been challenged under the newer regulation were challenged by Beaufort County parent Elizabeth “Ivie” Szalai and were previously reviewed and returned to district libraries following a review process before the regulation was passed.
Under Regulation 43-170, parents and legal guardians can submit up to five complaints per month regarding library books and instructional materials that contain descriptions or images of sexual content.
School districts are required to publicly review and vote on these complaints, but as Beaufort County had only recently reviewed and returned all of the questioned books, they have been forwarding any complaints straight to the state level to be dealt with there.
Friday’s meeting and review of the nine books was the result of a letter received by the Beaufort County Board of Education in which the state board requested that new book complaints are handled first at the district level instead of forwarding them immediately to the state level.
While Szalai no longer has a student enrolled in the district, her complaints made before the end of the 2024-2025 school year can still be reviewed as they were filed while her child was still a student enrolled in the district, and the Beaufort County Board of Education has been asked to deal with them.
All nine books reviewed on Friday have already been reviewed in the year-long process that took place before the regulation took effect and were returned to libraries.
Szalai was present at Friday’s meeting and spoke on each of the books as they were brought up for review and talked about why they should be removed from district libraries under Regulation 43-170 and read passages that she deemed inappropriate to support her arguments.
Hilton Head Island parent David Cook called in a few times to agree and reiterate her position.
On the other side, a large group of parents, students and members of Families Against Book Bans (FABB) spoke against restricting books and advocated for allowing all of the books to stay on library shelves as they had already been reviewed once in recent years and were deemed appropriate.
The board voted to restrict the books with a 9-2 vote – with board members David Carr and Ingrid Boatright dissenting – rather than ban them in trying to find a balance between content concerns without removing access to the books completely and stripping parents of their right to decide what is appropriate for their own children.
Boatright stated that while she can understand the regulation, she believes that the bigger problem is with social media, devices and online content and not with school library books.
Board member Chloe Gordon stated that books helped her to understand and protect herself from potentially dangerous situations by educating her about rape so that she could recognize and avoid situations where she could have been.
“I was able to read a book and therefore arm myself so that I was not one of those girls, one of those statistics,” Gordon said. “I will tell you that seeing that [students] can read about this, given the right to do what they need to do – I can’t take that away from them. I can’t take that away from their parents. I don’t have the right to do that, and we don’t have the right to do that as a board. We have the right to put the information out there and let it fall where it may, to help somebody’s child along the way.”
FABB released a statement regarding the board’s vote on Friday and thanked those who spoke against removing books but were disappointed that the board ultimately did not follow the community review committee recommendations that were previously made in the review process.
“While these nine titles will remain on shelves, we also recognize that restricted access is a form of censorship,” the press release from FABB said.
Szalai had not decided whether to accept the decision or to appeal to the State Board, even though she does see the outcome of Friday’s meeting as a win.
The board has finalized a letter to be sent in response to the letter previously sent by the state board in which they have explained that the nine books would be placed in a restricted section that is only accessible to students with written permission from a parent or legal guardian.
The books restricted during Friday’s meeting are “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, “The Freedom Writers Diary” by The Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell, “Sold” by Patricia McCormick, “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, “The Lovely Bones” by Jay Asher, “The Art of Racing in the Rain” by Garth Stein, “The Duff” by Kody Keplinger, “Tilt” by Ellen Hopkins.
Six other titles had already been removed for being older or rarely checked out – “Shine” by Lauren Myracle, “Skin” by Donna Jo Napoli, “The Carnival at Bray” by Jessie Ann Foley, “Like a Love Story” by Abdi Nazemian, “The Infinite Moment of Us” by Lauren Myracle and “Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen.
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.
