WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) – Parents are suing their school board over books on library shelves.
It’s the latest lawsuit out of Williamson County, claiming the books contain “obscene materials.” The lawsuit was filed on Friday; however, the board met on Monday for the first time since the filing.
The plaintiffs in the case claim the board is allowing books that “create pornographic visual images wholly inappropriate for middle school students, high school students, or any age or level of maturity.”
“I think the really important stipulation here is we need to trust the professionals that you all oversee and have hired. We need to trust our librarians to make determinations around what is educationally valuable, what is age appropriate when there is a challenge that comes from the community,” said one speaker during the June 19 board meeting.
The suit points to the June 19 board meeting as the reason behind the lawsuit. During that meeting, the Board focused on five books, including:
- “Perks of Being a Wallflower”
- “Where the Crawdads Sing”
- “Speak”
- “The Field Guide to the North American Teenager”
- “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”
“As a student, I feel that banning books with certain topics will limit education because I want to know about all kinds of different people and experiences to help me think critically instead of being close-minded,” said a Ravenwood High School student during the June meeting.
“You guys are breaking the law; you’re breaking the Age-Appropriate Act. By keeping certain books in libraries, you are providing pornographic materials to our children; our tax-payer funded public school libraries should not contain explicit, violent, and pornographic material that offers no educational value,” said another woman.
However, despite the lawsuit filed, the suit was not discussed during Monday night’s meeting.
News 2 reached out to the plaintiff’s lawyer, Rep. Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood), to get comment on the lawsuit. His team let News 2 know he was not available on Monday.
