The Holy Bible has been banned by Utah school district for elementary and middle school students after it was deemed to be ‘too vulgar’ and ‘too violent’ for young readers.
The ban came after a parent in the district became frustrated by other efforts to ban books in schools.
Officials in the Davis district, a 72,000-student district north of Salt Lake City, removed the Bible from elementary and middle schools but will be kept in high schools.
A committee with the district reviewed The Good Book after a parent complained and district officials say the committee comprises parents, teachers, and administrators.
Also, there was a complaint to remove the Book of Mormon from younger students’ libraries.
District spokesperson Chris Williams made it known that someone filed a review request for the Book of Mormon but did not reveal the reasons that were listed. He cited a school board privacy policy and did not reveal whether it was from the same person that complained about the Bible.
Williams stated that the district doesn´t differentiate between requests to review books and doesn’t consider if complaints may be submitted as satire. The reviews are handled by a committee comprising teachers, parents, and administrators in the conservative community.
The district has removed other titles like Sherman Alexie´s ‘The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian’ and John Green´s ‘Looking for Alaska,’ after a 2022 state law which required districts to include parents in decisions over what constitutes ‘sensitive material.’
The committee’s decision about the bible was published in an online database of review requests and did not talk more on its reasoning or which passages it found overly violent or vulgar.
The decision came as conservative parent activists, which include state-based chapters of the group Parents United, descend on school boards and statehouses in the United States, raising concern about how sex and violence are talked about in schools.
Owing to private policy of the district, it´s unknown who initiated the request for the Bible to be banned from Davis schools or whether they are affiliated with any larger group.
A copy of the complaint received by The Salt Lake Tribune via a public records request reveals that the parent stated that the Bible contains cases of incest, prostitution and rape. The complaint derided a ‘bad faith process’ and stated that the district was “ceding our children´s education, First Amendment Rights, and library access’ to Parents United.
‘Utah Parents United left off one of the most sex-ridden books around: The Bible,’ the parent´s complaint, dated Dec. 11, said. It later went on to add, ‘You´ll no doubt find that the Bible (under state law) has `no serious values for minors´ because it´s pornographic by our new definition.”
Williams said: “The review committee determined the Bible didn´t qualify under Utah’s definition of what’s pornographic or indecent, which is why it remains in high schools. The committee can make its own decisions under the new 2022 state law and has applied different standards based on students´ ages in response to multiple challenges.”
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