Parental Advisory Labels For Library Books Rejected By VA Senate Committee

VIRGINIA — A bill that would have required parental advisory labels to be placed on materials in both public libraries and school libraries that contain "sexually explicit content" was killed Thursday. The Senate Committee on Education and Health voted to “pass by indefinitely” the measure introduced by Republican state Sen. Amanda Chase.

The Senate committee voted 9-6, in a party-line vote, to defeat the bill. The vote means the proposal will not move forward in the current session of the General Assembly.

In its original form, Chase's bill, SB 1463, would have required local school boards and public library systems to affix a parental advisory label to the front of any book that contains sexually explicit content, as the term is defined in Virginia law.

An amended version of the bill was introduced on Jan. 26 that removed all public libraries from inclusion in the bill and limited the school libraries that would need to affix a parental advisory label to elementary and middle schools.

At a Jan. 26 hearing of the Senate Education and Health Committee’s Subcommittee on Public Education, Chase said she did not know how public libraries became included in the bill, when it was her intention to require only public school libraries to affix the parental advisory labels to sexually explicit books.

In her testimony before the subcommittee, Chase emphasized that the legislation was "a transparency bill."

"We need to empower parents to make educated and informed decisions about materials that they would prefer that their child to not read without parental notification," Chase said. "What this advisory label would do is to give parents a head-up whenever, for instance, their child brings home a book from school. It alerts the parent that they need to look at that book a little closer before allowing their child to read it."

A representative for the Virginia Association of School Librarians testified at the hearing that school divisions across the state already have policies in place for informing parents. Also, school librarians are trained professionals who know how to develop collections that are appropriate for the students in their schools, the representative said.

A witness speaking on behalf of the Virginia Library Association explained at the hearing that parents can already work with school librarians to prevent their children from checking out books the parents do not believe are appropriate.

Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, the Democratic chair of the subcommittee, said she is more concerned with violence in library books than sexually explicit content.

"I care about the gratuitous violence that children are exposed to, not necessarily through books, but through all the other social media. I think that does far greater harm to our children," Hashmi said.

Even in its amended form, the subcommittee voted 3-2 to recommend that Chase's bill not move forward.

Opponents of the bill argued it would be difficult for a group of people to agree on what books deserve the parental advisory labels. The words and meanings of sexually explicit content, even though it is defined in Virginia law, continue to be debated in the state.

Virginia code for sexually explicit materials, for example, includes items like sexual excitation, which could be broad enough to include kissing, according to the bill's opponents.

RELATED: VA Parental Advisory Label Bill Alarms Library, Anti-Censorship Groups