Feds say Forsyth’s book removals may have created ‘hostile environment’

Forsyth County Schools has agreed to a resolution with the federal government after it determined the system may have created a ‘hostile environment” for some students in the way it removed books from school libraries.

Under the resolution, the school system will communicate directly with students about the way it processed demands to ban books.

Parents and others flooded school board meetings to demand the removal of numerous titles. They said they were concerned about sexually explicit content, but many of the books were by authors of color and involved race. (About half the students in Forsyth — the state’s fifth-largest school district — are nonwhite.)

Other books that were removed involved gender identity or sexual orientation.

Forsyth removed eight books from middle and high school libraries in January 2022, including “The Bluest Eye,” the debut novel of Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison. Seven months later, after an in-depth review, the district restored seven of the books, but only on high school shelves.

Superintendent Jeff Bearden had ordered the temporary removal after parents raised concerns about explicit sexual content and LGBTQ+ subject matter.

In a letter earlier this month to Bearden, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights wrote that despite being notified that some students felt they were under attack, Forsyth’s messaging and other reactions “related to the book screening process were not designed to, and were insufficient to, ameliorate any resultant racially and sexually hostile environment.”

Forsyth avoided a potential court case by agreeing, in consultation with the Office of Civil Rights, to communicate to middle and high school students that the book removals were based on sexually explicit content, not the sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, national origin or color of the book’s author or characters.

Federal law prohibits exclusionary and discriminatory practices based on these characteristics for any school that accepts U.S. funding under Title VI (race) and Title IX (gender).