Another Rushed, Perfunctory Book Ban Meeting

Committee members and staff are not required to read the books before banning them.

Correction: This piece originally stated that Superintendent Ellen Weaver spoke to the Post and Courier about book bans. In fact, Weaver was speaking at a meeting of the Steel Magnolias Republican women’s group.

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Thank you, perfect timing.

-Instructional Materials Review Committee Chair Christian Hanley

Yesterday, South Carolina’s Instructional Materials Review Committee met for the first time since committee member Cheryl Collier’s op-ed complaining about the negative publicity created by its book removals. (Perhaps this was part of a larger PR strategy; Superintendent of Ellen Weaver was quoted in an article in the Post and Courier this week, where she responded to a question about book bans while speaking at a Republican women’s group. She also, as the headline put it, “bristled” at her book removals being compared to those of the Nazi Party during World War II.)

But, given the opportunity to explain their thinking more clearly, Collier and the other committee members stayed quiet, leaving it to staff attorney Robert Cathcart to repeat some variation of a few stock explanations as the committee moved to ban every book before it at yesterday’s meeting from all South Carolina public schools.

Before each vote, Cathcart gave the committee the opportunity to ask further questions. Each time, members simply moved to remove the books from all state schools.

The books which were voted for removal by the Instructional Materials Review Committee on March 13, 2025. These titles will now go to the Full State Board of Education for review.

I missed the first few minutes of the meeting, but saw the decisions on most of the books. The committee asked the members of the public who were testifying virtually no questions, though Chair Christian Hanley repeated his practice from previous meetings of thanking speakers for being efficient in their timing. (The committee has decided to allot each book a total of three minutes of testimony for banning and three against banning; this has at times resulted in speakers having as little as one minute to make a case concerning the future of the books. Committee members and staff are not required to read the books, only, as Cathcart repeated yesterday, to determine whether the books contain “violative content”— which in almost every case is entirely made up of “sexual content”.)

Only two speakers— Ivey Szalai, the Beaufort resident who initially challenged the 97 books in her local district, and former county councilman Mike Covert, who said he collaborated with Szalai on the list— spoke against any of the books. While Covert claimed to have read all of the 97 books, most or all of the passages shared with the committee and rehashed by Szalai yesterday before the committee considered each book, seemed to have been copied directly— typos and all— from the Moms for Liberty-affiliated website BookLooks.

The remaining speakers, who defended every book except Lucky, by Alice Sebold— which had no public testimony— pointed to some familiar themes which the committee did not address, other than by listening to Cathcart briefly and repeatedly summarize the Board regulation and the process for promulgating it after several speakers had finished.

The meeting, held on Microsoft Teams, was rife with technical difficulties, as the previous committee meetings have been. At one point, speaker Gabbi Zurlo almost did not get to testify before the committee voted, because the committee couldn’t figure out how to turn off a setting which did not allow her to unmute. Chair Hanley actually moved for a vote before Cathcart was able to unmute Zurlo.

Multiple parents, teachers, librarians, and anti-censorship experts testified. A common theme was that South Carolina’s well-known literacy issues would likely be exacerbated by taking more high-interest books out of students’ hands.

Another common theme was that the committee was being inconsistent in its application of the regulation. Mary Foster, of Families Against Book Bans, read passages from 1984 that contained, by most anyone’s measure, fairly graphic sexual content. She argued that the sexual content being used to recommend some of the books for removal yesterday was equivalent to that in 1984.

Cathcart indirectly responded to this point by saying that the committee had created a “precedent” that sexual content had to reach a certain level of “descriptiveness”. This has been a common argument by the committee, but the distinction is not actually in the language of the regulation, which simply says,

Instructional Material is not “Age and Developmentally Appropriate” for any age or age group of children if it includes descriptions or visual depictions of “sexual conduct,” as that term is defined by Section 16-15-305(C)(1).

The cited law does include other sections requiring the consideration of “artistic and literary value,” but as Cathcart reminded the committee, the Board opted to promulgate the regulation without including those sections, and so he repeatedly suggested that therefore members’ hands were tied. (He did not mention that during public testimony on the bill, a significant number of those testifying pleaded with the Board to include the language from state law that would have allowed and required them to consider artistic and literary merit.)

Several others testified yesterday were also not convinced that the content in 1984, which the committee voted to retain without reviewing any of its language, was meaningfully different, but again Cathcart seemed to rely on an inconsistent standard wherein the Board could decide subjectively which content involving sex constituted “sexual content” (regardless of the legal definition) but was powerless to consider artistic and literary merit.

Author Ellen Hopkins seemed to surprise the committee when it moved to the challenge against her book Identical.

Hopkins had signed up to testify, and although the committee again struggled to allow her to unmute, she ultimately was able to speak. Hopkins started by saying she doubted anything she said would change the committee’s mind, leaning back in her seat as if resigned to the committee’s preordained actions.

But then she shared letters from students who felt seen because of Identical, and who thanked her passionately for writing it. One student said reading the book had gotten her through a very difficult time. Hopkins’ books frequently deal with difficult subject matter such as sexual assault and drug abuse, issues which speakers yesterday consistently reminded the committee were all-too-commonly faced by South Carolina’s school-aged population.

The committee had no questions for or responses to Hopkins, and Collier, rather than outlining any of the arguments she made in her op-ed, immediately moved to ban Identical without explaining her reasoning, beyond the regulation’s prohibition on “age-inappropriate” content. Board member Joyce Crimminger seconded Collier, and all committee members voted to remove Identical.

When the committee moved to Sarah J. Maas’ fantasy novel Kingdom of Ash, a speaker who is an educator pointed out that the regulation was explicitly about “instructional” materials. She said she would never require students to read the book as part of her instruction, but that this didn’t mean it shouldn’t be available for optional reading.

Member Tammy Shore moved to remove the book “from all South Carolina public schools”. Collier seconded. The committee voted to remove it.

When introducing her complaint against the novel Last Night at the Telegraph Club, Szalai said, “This one will be really short and sweet.” She then listed off page numbers and descriptions of sexual content such as “touching of breast” and “stroking of nipple”.

This highlighted the way the regulation, and the committee’s choices in implementing it, encourage the reduction of complex literary works to lists of naughty scenes.

Malinda Lo, author of Last Night at the Telegraph Club, has spoken out about South Carolina’s ban on social media and on her website. Lo wrote a letter to the committee, but also said on her website that

Szalai's complaint claims that LNATTC "contains explicit sexual activities in violation of Regulation 43-170 specifically touching of breast and masterbation [sic]." The complaint includes excerpts of scenes from LNATTC stripped of their context. Indeed, the context of the entire novel is irrelevant to Regulation 43-170.

That last point was one that seemed to resonate with most of the speakers yesterday, and was confirmed multiple times by Cathcart, who said the committee was only allowed to consider the sexual content of the books, regardless of what other “good things” they might contain.

Lo wrote, in her letter to the committee,

One reader wrote to tell me, "Your books helped me love and accept myself." A Chinese American reader wrote, "I feel so seen. Perhaps a little bit too seen, as I am on the verge of tears." A teen from Nashville told me, "it means a lot to see people like me in literature, written by people like me."

Although her book has been challenged in many states, Lo has shared, this is the first time it has been threatened with a statewide ban from all public schools.

Librarian Valerie Byrd Fort, to no one’s surprise, was also unable to mute her mic, and the committee once again scrambled to figure out how to fix whatever setting they were using which was not allowing participants to be heard. Cathcart ultimately indicated that staff had somehow created the problem, though Hanley repeatedly implied multiple speakers were somehow failing to unmute themselves.

Fort, “a library educator and parent,” spoke on behalf of the Last Night at the Telegraph Club, which won the National Book Award, the Stonewall Book Award, the Asian/ Pacific American Award for Literature, and several other major awards. She pointed out that the “explicit material is not even one percent of the book”.

“The topics covered in this novel,” Fort said, “are essential for understanding our past and current events.”

Fort said, taken with the bans of Flamer and All Boys Aren’t Blue, the challenge against the book created a negative message for South Carolina’s LGBTQ+ students.

Hanley’s only response, as Fort concluded: “Thank you, perfect timing”.

Cathcart, claimed once again that the book’s sexual content was somehow more similar to that of books like Damsel, which the board removed, than that of 1984, which the Board retained.

Crimminger moved to ban the book. Shore seconded, and the Board voted to remove the book from all South Carolina public schools.

When it was time to hear the challenge on Elizabeth Scott’s Living Dead Girl, Hanley said, “Again, Ivey, you have three minutes.”

Szalai started by saying, “I am not targeting books based on anyone’s sexual persuasion, their race, religion, or anything of that kind… Educators have a duty to protect students from materials that could be harmful.”

The next speaker, who was defending the book, again had issues with unmuting herself.

She pointed out the high numbers of students who are victims of sexual assault both nationally and in South Carolina, saying, “Banning this book won’t erase their reality”.

She continued, “This book is not pornography, and it’s only salacious to people who are a danger to society.” She said if the Board removed the book, it would contribute to a culture of ignoring the reality of sexual assault.

Cathcart responded, indirectly, with a stock response: “This material does contain descriptions of sexual content,” and therefore must be removed.

Shore moved to remove the book. Collier seconded. There was once again no discussion, and the committee voted to remove.

Szalai came back to speak in favor of banning Tricks, another Ellen Hopkins book. She began by addressing Hopkins’ presence, saying, “I have read many of her books,” but arguing they were inappropriate for children. As she had with other books, she listed off the alleged violative passages, which were identical to those found on BookLooks.

Returning to testify, Hopkins said she became interested in child sex trafficking, the subject of Tricks, due to a sting in Reno, where she lived. She said she was inspired by “real kids’ stories”.

“My goal,” Hopkins said, “was to keep more kids off the street and away from dangerous situations”. This echoed her written statement to the State Board when it previously considered a ban against her book CRANK. That book, inspired by the drug addiction of Hopkins daughter, was also intended as a warning for children.

The committee delayed a vote on that earlier book, and the full State Board ultimately decided to restrict CRANK to students with signed parental permission slips instead of banning it outright; none of Hopkins’ books yesterday received similar consideration.

Hopkins said to understand books, you need to read the entire book, not simply passages, and went on to say,

The right to read must not be infringed. I’m not the first to say this, but it must be repeated: Every person is free to choose whatever books they do or do not want to read. Every parent has always been free to make that choice for his or her own children. But no one is free to decide what I can or cannot read. And no one is free to tell me what my child can or cannot read…

Fear-driven politics is at the heart of the current book-banning fad. It’s not about ‘protecting our children’. It’s about keeping them ignorant.

We cannot progress as a country, or as a species, if we’re not allowed to gather information, educate ourselves, and develop critical thinking skills. We cannot create a better future if we’re not allowed to learn from the past. We cannot become better human beings if we’re not taught empathy.

Mike Covert, who testified against Tricks, disagreed. He said he had shown some of the list of 97 books to local religious leaders.

His own criteria for selecting books to remove was this: “If you can’t, or are not allowed to read it in a church, why would we spend tax dollars to put it in public schools?”

When the committee moved to adjourn, it had apparently accomplished its main goal: to run through a series of consequential determinations on books without discussing them, without responding directly to public testimony, and without even taking time to put to rest the supposedly false narratives Collier had complained about in her op-ed.

While the Instructional Materials Review Committee voted to ban every book on this month’s list, its decision will be reviewed by the Full Board during its next regular meeting. While the first few Full Board meetings mainly saw members rubber-stamping the committee’s recommendations (which were, in turn, generally identical to the staff attorney recommendations), last month saw two Board members, David O'Shields and Beverley Frierson, vote against several of the bans.

If you’re in South Carolina, you can find your Board member here.

Committee chair Christian Hanley has indicated he plans to go through Szalai and Covert’s entire 97-book list.