SOMERSET COUNTY, MD - The Somerset County Board of Education voted to pass a policy empowering them to remove certain books from Somerset County Public Schools (SCPS) during a meeting Tuesday night.
WBOC previously reported that revisions to board policy #500-19 would transfer the power to select and approve new books or digital materials away from librarians to the Board of Education members.
The now-passed policy identifies "profanity, vulgarity and violence," as well as "victimhood, rebellion, futility and lawlessness," as themes that could qualify a book as unsuitable for school-age children.
Current Board Chair Matthew Lankford played a video with excerpts from "All Boys Aren't Blue" by George M. Johnson for his fellow board members before the vote. Lankford said reading this book, which he described as "pornographic," inspired him to run for the position when he saw it in his son's ninth-grade English curriculum.
"If you want your kids to see that kind of stuff, hey, you're more than welcome," Lankford said. "Take it to your home, but not in our schools."
In a statement to WBOC, SCPS contested the presence of the explicit material played before the Board Tuesday in its schools.
Somerset County Public Schools (SCPS) clarifies that in the 2021–2022 school year, one English I teacher used a copied excerpt of Chapter 1 of All Boys Aren’t Blue in a lesson. When this was brought to the Board’s attention in the subsequent school year by a parent, the superintendent at the time mandated that the excerpt no longer be used in any lessons. The Board was made aware at that time that the excerpt from Chapter 1 was no longer part of instruction. The full book was never purchased, assigned, distributed, or made available to students, nor was it ever part of any SCPS media center collection.
Tuesday's meeting became contentious when Superintendent Dr. Ava Tasker-Mitchell and Lankford disagreed on the proper procedure for making policy for the county's public schools.
"She basically stated that the staff and herself should be involved in the policy-making... well, thepolicy is for the board," Lankford said. "We want to hear her speak; I wish it was about 500-19 and not about policies in general."
The policy has been condemned by the Maryland Association of School Librarians (MASL). Advocacy Co-Chair Jacob Gerding contributed to a letter MASL sent to the Board expressing their concerns.
Gerding said he is disappointed that the policy passed, but advocates for Maryland's librarians will continue to fight against it, as they believe it infringes on parental and student rights.
Gerding worries that many of the themes deemed inappropriate in this policy encompass the realities of human experience.
"We can't understand those things if we don't read about them to better understand them," Gerding said. "So the fact that they would seek to remove content from this school is incredibly disturbing."
The passage of Policy #500-19 comes nearly a year after Governor Wes Moore's Freedom to Read Act, which protects materials in school libraries that receive state funding from removal because of partisan, ideological or religious disapproval.
Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown responded to WBOC's request for comment with this statement.
Marylanders should not be kept from learning about the realities of our world because a small vocal few who disagree with who an author is, who they love, or who they worship. Marylanders deserve to see themselves reflected in the books they read, the art they see, and the history they learn. Maryland’s library collection allows our readers to become critical thinkers, exposed to ideas that they may disagree with, proud of what our nation has overcome, and thoughtful about what comes next.
Lankford said this policy is not a ban but an attempt to focus solely on educational materials.
"The next step is to identify all the bools that are pervasively vulgar or educationally unsuitable," Lankford said. "At that point, we also, of course, there'll be procedures that are developed by our Superintendent and the staff."