OAN’s Roy Francis
10:12 AM – Wednesday, June 21, 2023
The Davis School District in northern Utah has reversed its decision from May to remove Bibles from the libraries of its schools.
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Late in May, a review committee for the Davis School District had decided to pull the King James Bible from the libraries of elementary and junior high schools after claims that it contains “vulgarity and violence.”
In 2022, Utah State Legislators passed a law, HB374, which banned sensitive material from schools. Since the law passed, dozens of books have been removed from schools around the state.
The law states that if a parent presents a formal request to the district, schools must remove books that contain “human genitals in a state of sexual stimulation or arousal, acts of human masturbation or sexual intercourse, and fondling or other erotic touching of human genitals or public regions.”
In March, a parent had filed a complaint to the district, claiming that the Bible falls under the category of materials that that were described in the law.
The review committee had proceeded to pull the Bible from libraries after receiving the complaint.
On Tuesday, School Board members voted unanimously to return the Bible to district libraries after receiving backlash and criticism for their earlier decision, along with over 70 parents filing appeals to challenge the decision to ban the Bible.
The school board said that an appeal committee had reviewed the earlier decision and their community standards, and had found that the Bible has “significant, serious value for minors.”
“Based on their assessment of community standards, the appeal committee determined that The Bible has significant, serious value for minors which outweighs the violent or vulgar content it contains,” the committee wrote in a decision published along with school board materials.
The committee’s reversal is another development since the Utah law had passed in 2022.
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