Here's why Lake Travis ISD is removing one book, keeping another at high school library

The Lake Travis school board is ordering the district's high school to remove “The Haters” from its library but keep “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” on its shelves after reviewing a parent complaint that the books contained sexually explicit content.

The board's decisions came after dozens of parents and students made passionate pleas to keep or remove the books during the district's Wednesday night board meeting, which was standing room-only and lasted several hours.

Many of the students who spoke against removing the books insisted that they weren’t being treated as critical thinkers and assured the board that they could make their own decisions about what to read. Parents who expressed concern about the content, however, said books with sexual references don’t belong in schools.

Both books by Jesse Andrews are young adult coming-of-age novels.

The board voted 4-2 to keep “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” in the library and voted 4-2 to remove “The Haters.” School board member Robert Aird was absent.

“Fear, I think, is driving this issue on both sides,” member Erin Archer said. “Fear that we have turned into book banners and we're going to be removing stuff from the library without consent and transparency, and fear that our dedicated staff is groomers and other things.”

Archer voted against removing “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” because the book is mostly just vulgar rather than obscene, she said, but voted to remove “The Haters.”

While the books aren’t for everyone, they have literary value, said member Phillip Davis. The books have vulgar language, but accurately reflect the dialect of teenage boys, he said.

“The dominant theme of the book is not that,” Davis said. “While there is some discussion — there is descriptions of sexually explicit scenes in the book — that's not what the book is about.”

Member Keely Cano favored removing the books from the library because of their gratuitous vulgarity, she said. She pointed out 97 uses of the F-word in “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.”

“’Me and Earl and the Dying Girl’ does not belong in any school library because of the extensive vulgarity and incredibly crude sexual material that is gratuitous and not integral to the story,” Cano said.

Parent complaint

The two books landed on the school board’s agenda Wednesday night after Jodie Dover, a parent of two elementary school-age children in the district, raised concerns about their content and appealed a parent and staff review committee’s decision to keep the material in the high school's library.

She told the board Wednesday that the books contain graphic content and should not be available to students.

“It's not removing them from circulation,” Dover said. “It's not book banning. It's not book burning. It's doing what adults do and determining what is right for children.”

Student concern

More than 30 students and parents came to the board meeting Wednesday night to speak about the two novels under consideration for removal and about book challenges in general.

A group of about a dozen students sat in the front two rows, holding signs that read, “Freedom” or “Wanted,” picturing the covers of the two books.

Most of the students insisted that they could make their own choices about what content to consume and that the books gave them access to a broad spectrum of perspectives.

High school freshman Aahana Shukla said she wanted to speak to the board because she disagrees with removing books from the high school.

“Reading books is a good way of getting, a really good way of getting, a sense of perspective on life,” Shukla said. “I’ve always loved reading. For me, reading was a way to understand people and actually, literally see through their view and be able to relate to them.”

Shukla hadn’t read the two books discussed Wednesday night, but she has read “Speak,” which the board last year relocated from the middle school collection to the high school. The book's topic about a teenage victim of rape was challenging to read, Shukla said, but it helped her understand a different perspective.

Several parents, who were concerned about the books' content, also attended the board meeting Wednesday to plea for their removal.

Even if a story is good, it doesn’t need to include sexual content if it’s for children, said Cindy Najera, a parent of four Lake Travis students, including two in high school. "Why did they have to put that in there?” Najera asked.

Broader issue

Under the Lake Travis district’s book challenge policy, a parent must first raise their concerns to campus staff. If the parent doesn’t agree with the staff’s decision, they can appeal to a committee made up of district parents and staff members who then read and review the book.

The parent who brought the book challenge can appeal a committee decision to the school board. The district is in the process of revising the review process to make it more transparent.

In November, the school board moved or removed three books in district schools. The board moved “Bodies Are Cool,” a picture book, from the elementary school collection to the teacher and staff collection. The board also moved “Speak” from the middle to high school and removed “I Never,” a young adult romance, from the high school.

Nationwide, book challenges have become much more prevalent since 2021.

Those pushing book challenges worried that students were reading inappropriate content in school libraries. People against book bans have said removing materials marginalizes minority and underrepresented groups and robs students — especially those who come from low-income backgrounds — of access.

Concerns about content in books in schools sparked the Legislature last year to pass the READER Act, or House Bill 900. The law requires book vendors to rate materials they sell to schools for sexual explicitness and prohibits schools from buying explicit books.

The law, which has been temporarily blocked from going into effect, has been tied up in an appeals court for months after several Texas booksellers and library associations filed a suit in July, alleging it’s overly burdensome and costly to businesses. A U.S. District Court judge in September temporarily halted the law, but the state has appealed that decision.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas book ban: Lake Travis ISD removes novel from high school library