Utah has become the first state to institute a statewide book ban, prohibiting 13 books by authors including Margaret Atwood, Judy Blume, and Rupi Kaur in public school classrooms and libraries.
The move comes after the state passed a bill on July 1 that allowed for books with “pornographic or indecent” material to be banned. Utah has a Republican governor and GOP supermajorities in both its state House and Senate.
Six of the 13 banned books were written by fantasy romance author Sarah J. Mass. Twelve of the 13 have women authors. School districts as well as charter schools must now “legally” dispose of these books, which “may not be sold or distributed.”
The nonprofit free expression organization PEN America called the ban “a dark day for the freedom to read in Utah.”
The state’s ban “will impose a dystopian censorship regime across public schools and, in many cases, will directly contravene local preferences,” the organization’s Freedom to Read program director, Kasey Meehan, told The Guardian. “Allowing just a handful of districts to make decisions for the whole state is anti-democratic.”
Banning books is a theme across a lot of dystopian fiction such as Fahrenheit 451 and Nineteen Eighty-Four, which ironically could be banned next under Utah’s new law. In real life, book bans commonly occur in repressive and authoritarian societies. That fits into a pattern with Utah Republicans, who have also proposed monitoring which public restrooms people use. Utah’s extremism isn’t unique among red states, though: in Oklahoma, the state is requiring that the Bible be taught in schools.
According to The Salt Lake Tribune, the full list of banned books in Utah is:
