Literacy Matters Vol. 25 Winter 2025

“We Followed the Model Policy:” Beaufort County as a Case Study of the Book Challenge Policy Implementation Process in South Carolina

by Susan Cridland-Hughes, Katie McGee, and Jennifer Gallman

Judy Blume notes, “censorship grows out of fear, and because fear is contagious, some parents are easily swayed. Book banning satisfies their need to feel in control of their children’s lives” (Blume, 2024). This article explores South Carolina’s battle for control over schools and the materials used to not only educate but also support youth. Materials targeted for challenges exist in three primary spaces: books available in libraries, textbooks adopted in classes (commonly referred to as instructional materials), and books available in teachers’ classroom libraries. Schools facing materials challenges have responded in a range of ways. Some schools and districts have immediately pulled texts and/or assignments, while others focused on clarifying reviewmaterials policies and/or increasing transparency about what is being taught in schools. The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, we record the current state of book bans and challenges in South Carolina; second, we explore three micro-cases of individual books in one of the most well known challenges in Beaufort, SC; third, we offer some suggestions about how teachers can work to rebuild the relationships with the community and strengthen their local systems. Critical Media Literacy, Book Bans, and Censorship Movements We center our discussion of book bans and censorship movements within the theory of Critical Media Literacy (CML). CML offers a means of analyzing the relationship between media representation and text, in this case school-based texts (Alvermann and Hagood, 2000). CML also helps us explore how power undergirds both the policies and the rhetoric used in attempts to challenge books (Lacković, 2020). Specifically, book bans, as Blume noted, are contagious, and understanding the media used to advance them nationwide requires that we expand our definition of mass communication and how it operates. As book bans and censorship become mainstream laws in conservative states, writers such as Hixenbaugh (2024) and Knox (2015) highlight the power struggles undergirding book-banning policies. of both to fit current forms of mass communication such as social media, popular culture, and social networks. The modern explanations of literacy and media stem from Kellner and Share (2005) who included analysis and production skills in online and print literacies and broadened media to include a variety of mediums of mass communication combined with popular culture to allow a critical analysis of the connections between media and literacy regarding the audience’s conception of information Definitions of literary and media evolved with the advancement of technology; therefore, there is a need to expand the definitions

ABSTRACT — Schools in the United States are facing a multi year book challenge crisis (McCormick, 2023). In South Carolina, one of the first signs of this was a challenge of 96 books in the Beaufort County School District (McCombs & Sofaly, 2022). This initial large-scale challenge has resulted in multiple years of book challenge committees and policy changes. In our investigation of book challenges in South Carolina, we explore how policy and parental advocacy intersect in the battle over literacy materials such as books in local schools. This paper seeks to do three things: first, we want to highlight how the experiences in South Carolina weave into the national landscape of book challenges, curricular control, and the stratification of schools and communities; second, we explore the experiences of the book challenge process through three micro-studies of texts in Beaufort County; third, we focus on how teachers, parents, and students can pull schools and communities back together so that the goals of public education are at the heart of the work we do together. Introduction In his recent book about the battles over schools in Southlake, Texas, journalist Mike Hixenbaugh does not start by discussing schools or book challenges. Instead, he talks about the changing relationships in communities after Covid-19. One of his key insights was that “the COVID-19 pandemic had been driving [people] apart, forcing people inside and online, deeper into their own echo chambers… and planting seeds of suspicion and resentment” (2024, p.2). Hixenbaugh goes on to discuss how this expanding resentment moved from the neighborhoods to the schools. Schools and communities were out of step regarding how best to create welcoming spaces for all students and media personalities and politicians exploited that fissure. Although Hixenbaugh highlights the effects of COVID-19, there has been an ongoing war on education and COVID-19 was the moment where earlier fracturing of the relationship between parents and schools splintered. The “in loco parentis” trust necessary for school-based caretakers to effectively support youth has given way to a culture of avoiding criticism rather than serving all youth. Even more concerning, rhetoric about teachers and librarians as threats was weaponized for political advantage, leaving teachers and public schools unsure how best to support the growing diversity in schools. There is fear on both sides, and fear-based interactions lead to conflict. In South Carolina, as well as across the nation, much of this conflict focuses on curricular materials available in schools. Many of these texts are books that ask youth to explore the world from a perspective different from their own. The conflict we are experiencing as a nation is a manifestation of a culture of fear, and, as

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