NC lawmaker seeks to ban books on sexuality and gender identity in elementary libraries

A top North Carolina lawmaker wants to remove books that discuss gender identity and sexuality from elementary school libraries across the state — a push that could bring challenges from civil liberties groups.

State Rep. Brenden Jones, R-Columbus, is looking to expand the scope of a 2023 state law known as the “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” which limits instruction on gender identity, sexual orientation and sexual activity before the fifth grade. 

Jones thinks library books with those themes should be banned from elementary libraries, too, and says he’s drafting a bill that would do just that.

It’s inappropriate for young children to be exposed to literature about sexual orientation, he told WRAL in an interview.

“We’re going to put some real teeth in this bill this coming session, so there will be no cloudy areas and no gray areas,” Jones, the House majority leader, told WRAL. 

Similar efforts have faced challenges in the past. House lawmakers passed a bill last year that sought to create review boards charged with approving books and other media for school libraries. The bill stalled in the Senate. A spokesperson for Senate leader Phil Berger didn’t respond to a request for comment. Democratic opponents of the bill argued that the bill amounted to a book ban and could lead to expensive legal challenges across the state.

When asked to comment on Jones’s idea, a spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina referred WRAL to a page on the organization’s website about book bans. “Under the First Amendment, public officials may not bar access to ideas simply because they don't like those ideas for political or partisan reasons,” the group says.

States that have passed similar laws have faced legal challenges from publishers, librarians and citizens. In Iowa, a federal appellate court ruled the state can enforce a law that restricts teachers from talking about LGBTQ topics with students in kindergarten through the sixth grade and bans some books in libraries and classrooms.

‘Santa’s Husband’

Jones declined to give specifics on his planned legislation. But he said it would propose “financial ramifications” for school districts that don’t comply. Most North Carolina school funding comes from the state.

Jones’s effort has the support of House Speaker Destin Hall, according to a Hall spokesperson. And the proposed legislation could be filed as soon as this month, Jones said.

It comes months after a legislative showdown between Republican state lawmakers and school leaders in one of the state’s most liberal areas. 

In December, Jones summoned the head of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools System to a hearing at the legislature in which Jones tossed a book titled “Santa’s Husband” over his shoulder and accused a school board member of giving a “middle finger to this legislature and to every parent in your district.”

Jones has called Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Superintendent Rodney Trice and Al McArthur, the district's Director of Digital Learning & Library Services, to another hearing on April 23.

Jones says his staff identified at least 155 titles that contain themes of sexuality, gender identity and sexual activity in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools System’s elementary school libraries. 

Library database records indicate that many of the titles are available and in circulation. WRAL also found multiple titles at elementary schools in other districts across the state. But Chapel Hill-Carrboro appeared to have far more than other districts.

Chapel Hill-Carrboro leaders declined to comment on Jones’s allegations. District officials in December disputed Jones's findings, saying the database was wrong and the books weren’t in the district’s libraries. They also said they don’t use those books for instruction in classrooms.

WRAL sought to verify if all of the titles Jones found were actually in the district’s libraries. School district officials didn’t respond to that request. But some of the titles were checked out as recently as last week, a WRAL review of the database found. 

Jones grilled the district’s leaders in December after video footage emerged of the school board’s chairman, George Griffin, criticizing parts of the 2023 law governing classroom conversations about gender and sexuality. The law bans discussions about those topics from kindergarten through fourth grade and requires educators to tell parents if their child is requesting to use a different name or pronoun than the ones listed in public records.

Griffin told Jones in December that the district is complying with the law and apologized for any misunderstandings that his comments caused. District officials have said that they issued guidance that lays out district policies that go above and beyond the language in the statute. 

State Rep. Allen Buansi, D-Orange, says Jones’s time could be better spent and that he’s ready to go to bat for the school system. 

“Instead of attacking public schools, we should fully fund public schools, for the sake of the children,” said Buansi, the only state lawmaker who represents the Chapel Hill-Carrboro district. “North Carolinians deserve much better.”

Craig White, a director at the LGBTQ advocacy group Campaign for Southern Equality, said these books could help prepare students to live in a diverse and multicultural society. He added that his group hears from North Carolina teachers who are afraid of being sued or fired — or cost their school funding — “if they treat LGBTQ+ students and students of color fairly.” 

“This belief comes not from the actual law, but from the threats of conservative politicians and political groups who are bullying teachers into over-complying with deliberately vague curriculum laws,” White said.

Jones says he is ready for pushback from critics and that he’s not picking on officials in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro district. “If we have to go through every one of them, that’s what we’ll do,” he said.

Jones said he has also reviewed schools in his own region. When pressed, he acknowledged that there was at least one title that discussed gender identity or sexuality in Robeson County. He said the district was in the process of removing the book. 

Officials in that district didn’t respond to a request for comment. As of Friday, a state library database listed at least one book — “The story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag,” a history of the gay-pride symbol — as available.

A spokesperson for Random House, which publishes the book about the rainbow flag, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did a spokesperson for HarperCollins, which publishes “Santa’s Husband,” the book Jones tossed in the December legislative hearing.

Jones said he doesn’t currently have plans to summon Robeson County schools officials to a legislative hearing.