VA Lawmaker Pushes For Parental Advisory Labels On 'Sexually Explicit' Library Books

VIRGINIA — Among the more than 1,500 pieces of legislation introduced in the 2023 Virginia General Assembly session are bills that would create greater government regulation of books and other materials on the shelves of libraries across the state.

One bill under discussion in Richmond would require school libraries to send parents a notification whenever their child checks out school library materials, including the title and a description of the book.

Another bill, introduced by state Sen. Amanda Chase, a Republican from Midlothian, would require parental advisory labels to be placed on materials in both public libraries and school libraries that contain “sexually explicit content," as the term is defined in Virginia law.

“When you get into parental advisory labels, it becomes very curious because it seems to assume that one person or a group of people have the wisdom to decide what’s appropriate or inappropriate for all user access,” Lisa Varga, executive director of the Virginia Library Association, told Patch. “I don’t know how you create a group of people that would be able to agree on what books deserve those labels.”

On Wednesday, Chase's bill, SB 1463, was referred to the Senate Education and Health Committee’s Subcommittee on Public Education.

The words and meanings of sexually explicit content, even though it is defined in Virginia law, continue to be debated in the state, Varga said.

Virginia code for sexually explicit materials, for example, includes items like sexual excitation, which could be broad enough to include kissing.

The American Library Association acknowledges that viewpoint-neutral labels in libraries — a colored dot or strip of tape indicating reference books or fiction, or more elaborate types of non-prejudicial labeling systems — are a convenience designed to save time. But the public library group opposes moves to adopt parental advisory labels on books.

"Labeling as an attempt to prejudice attitudes is a censor’s tool," the ALA said in a statement on library labeling systems. "The American Library Association opposes labeling as a means of predisposing people’s attitudes toward library resources."

Voluntary vs. Legally Enforceable Labels

Supporters of placing parental advisory labels on library books often compare them to the movie ratings system or the parental advisory labels introduced by the Recording Industry Association of America in 1985.

But the rating system created by the Motion Picture Association of America in 1968 is a voluntary system that is tied to distribution of movies and is not legally enforceable.

The parental advisory label bill introduced by Chase would legally require every library board, school board and the Library of Virginia to affix a label to the front of any book that contains “sexually explicit content” and that can be accessed by a minor.

Varga believes a parental labeling system for library books would be applied inconsistently across the state.

“Do we have every school system in Virginia creating its own labeling system because every time a new book comes in it would have to be evaluated by an individual or team to determine whether it or not it is deserving of a label?” Varga asked. “Some of the opinions will differ based on the community. There isn’t a lot of inconsistency to it.”

PEN America found that a Florida school district had attached a warning to the description label on more than 100 books listed on the district’s online library catalog, and physical labels were affixed to hard copies of the same books. The books in the Collier County School District in Florida receiving these warnings disproportionately included stories featuring LGBTQ characters and plot lines and titles about communities of color, according to PEN America.

READ ALSO: Banned Books Week: What Titles Have Been Removed From VA Schools

Children’s books such as "Everywhere Babies" by Susan Meyers and "Julian is a Mermaid" by Jessica Love were among titles labeled with a warning. Authors targeted by the Collier County School District included Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, George Johnson, Jodi Picoult, Arundhati Roy and John Updike.

"This alarming development is just the latest in an onslaught of attacks against students’ freedom to read in Florida. Even if access to these books is not technically restricted, the labeling of these books risks attaching a stigma to the topics they cover and the books themselves," Jonathan Friedman, director of free expression and education programs at PEN America, said in a statement last August.

Under the guise of "parental rights," interest groups have been empowered by elected officials, according to Friedman. "Every child deserves the right to learn from a diverse set of voices and perspectives, and to freely access the books they wish to read," he said.

In Texas, a proposed law in the state House of Representatives would force publishers to put content ratings on books they sell to public or charter schools. The Republican-backed bill would also set legal limits on which grade levels could access which books in schools, and create an online, state-run blacklist of noncompliant publishers, Courthouse News reported Thursday.

Tom Oliverson, a Republican who filed the content rating bill in Texas, said it would create something like the current TV rating system, but for school books.

Critics counter that there are major differences between current content rating systems and those proposed by Oliverson. Rating systems for movies, television shows and video games are voluntary, advisory and industry-run. The proposal in Texas for books would be mandatory and regulated by the government, with legal limits on which students could access which books, Courthouse News reported.

'Undue Burden' On Library Staff

For both public libraries and school libraries, reviewing which books would need a parental advisory label, under Chase's bill, would require an inordinate amount of staff time and cost huge amounts of money, according to librarians.

The bill would "create an undue burden on librarians and library staff," Varga said.

"By adding more and more and not taking a careful look at the balance of what the work is creating, I fear that schools are definitely going to be changing the quality of the education that children are getting if we keep pulling educators away to do some of these administrative tasks," she said.

Over the past two years, Virginia lawmakers have been pushing bills that would affect school instructional material and library services. "Virginia is no different from other states right now," she explained. "We've been seeing these vocal minorities getting a lot of attention. That doesn’t mean they’re right."

Varga also emphasized that parents have always had the right to have a voice in their child’s education, including engaging in a process to challenge a book used for instruction or in the library.

"We want to encourage that conversation. But we don’t think that we should have one group of people making bulk decisions for everybody else," she said. "If you don’t want your child to read a book, that’s fine. But you don’t get to decide what books other children get to read."

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