Legislation targets books in public school libraries with ratings system
Is a movie-like rating system the same as book banning? Legislators say no, but some in the education community are still weary.
Legislation in the House is targeting books in public schools, with two bills specifically making a rating system for books in public school libraries, much like how there is a rating system for movies.
The books, however, would be rated by including a “sexually explicit material” or “sexually relevant material” warning on them, so that when they were picked up by students, parents or teachers, they would be notified before starting to read.
Rep. Michah Caskey, R-Lexington, one of four sponsors of the ‘Reader Act’, said the rating system would rely on existing state-law definitions of what is deemed sexually explicit. It would be another layer of defense to protect children from inappropriate material, he said.
“It’s just similar to the way movies work,” said Rep. Brandon Guffey, R-York, another co-sponsor of the bill. “We’ve seen plenty of situations across the country where you can’t even read what’s in a book that’s being distributed to children. So I mean the simple solution to me would be a rating system, similar to the way we do movies.”
It would be up to the publisher to initially rate the book, but the Department of Education would also have the ability to rate it, as well as every school district.
Caskey said people concerned or worried about the bill should give the legislators feedback. He said the goal is to keep children safe.
“I’m focused narrowly on sexually explicit materials that don’t have educational value,” Caskey said.
Across the country, book banning has become a prominent conversation. School districts in South Carolina have already banned certain books, including in September when 17 were deemed inappropriate by the Lexington 2 school district after complaints from parents were filed.
Guffey said he had met with the Palmetto State Teachers Association about the proposed bill. They discussed language as well as concerns surrounding the bill.
“We’re not blocking, say, sex education books or anything of that nature. We just want to make sure things are age appropriate,” Guffey said.
The other bill, sponsored by April Cromer, is nearly identical to the one sponsored by Caskey, Guffey, Rep. Thomas Pope, R-York, and Rep. Roger Nutt, R-Spartanburg, pushing for a rating system of public school books.
Sherry East, President of the South Carolina Education Association, said the bill seems like a good idea.
“I think this is a good compromise,” East said. “Even video games even have a maturity level on it, so does music. If you choose to let your child read mature books, that‘s your parental right to do that.”
East said if she were a parent she would be glad to see a rating on a book before letting her child read it, as she could be more informed.
“It seems like we would support this, but I don’t know, the devil is in the details,” East said.
Tamara Cox, president of the South Carolina Association of School Librarians, said she couldn’t tell whether the bills would be good or bad. Both pose more questions for her, she said.
“We’ve seen so many books challenged and so many other laws across the country,” Cox said. “It’s hard for me to give a strong opinion yet.”
Cox said ideally the bills would be implemented in a way that’s already closely related to what librarians do. She hopes current librarians have input on implementation and process. That books aren’t already rated is a misconception, Cox said. She and many other librarians take time to look through what kind of books they allow to be in their libraries based on age range, she said.
“Obviously an elementary librarian is going to purchase a lot different books than a high school librarian because we’re looking at those age ranges,” Cox said.
She said she hopes that the government would want to include experts in the field when they are writing bills. While she said she doesn’t necessarily have a “thumbs up or down,” yet for the bills, she is worried there is potential for it to be abused.
“Our biggest worry is that it would be used to try and ban more materials, but there’s also a possibility it can be done well especially if it included educators and child development experts,” Cox said.
