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Officials address local push to remove books from Bedford County school libraries

SHANNON KELLY The (Lynchburg) News & Advance Dec 13, 2021

In response to recent challenges to multiple books, some available at certain Bedford County high schools, the county’s public schools staff outlined the division’s policy for handling such challenges during December’s school board meeting.

At the November meeting, Amy Snead, speaking on behalf of Bedford County’s Moms for Liberty group, requested certain books in some Bedford County high school libraries be “immediately” removed from shelves.

Snead brought print-outs of select portions from one of the challenged books, Jeanette Wall’s “The Glass Castle,” and gave them to school board members and staff, along with a list of 12 other challenged book titles, saying the content was “inappropriate,” as she said they contained in certain parts “graphic” descriptions of various forms of abuse and assault, explicit sexual language, strong cursing, and/or non-heterosexual perspectives.

No context or book summaries were provided with the titles and select quotes.

Challenged books in Bedford County also include “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini and Toni Morrison’s “Beloved.”

Snead said she was “in no way” attempting to suppress freedom of speech or promote censorship. The group, she said, wanted “simply to remove language and imagery that is not appropriate at this age level.” She claimed if students were found texting or passing notes to one another containing the selected lines from “The Glass Castle” she printed out for the board, those students would be in violation of the schools’ code of conduct and would be disciplined with detention or in-school suspension.

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Bedford County is not alone in dealing with challenges to certain books in school libraries. The trend has spread throughout the United States, including various school divisions in Florida, Texas, and elsewhere in Virginia. Many instances reported on include pushes from local Moms for Liberty groups, a conservative group that started in Florida and has seen local chapters spring up elsewhere.