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The Alberta government has temporarily paused the implementation of its standards on sexually explicit content in school libraries, saying the directive needs revision after Edmonton Public Schools released a book removal list that the province says didn’t reflect the policy’s intended purpose.
Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides made the announcement on Sept. 2, a few days after Edmonton Public Schools released an internal list of 200 books it intended to ban.
The list was leaked and shared online on Aug. 28 and included titles such as Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” and books by authors like Alice Munro and Ayn Rand.
“I’m going to be more explicit than usual so there is no misunderstanding this policy: 1. Get graphic pornographic images out of school libraries. 2. Leave the classics on the shelves,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said on social media after Nicolaides’s public announcement. “We all know the difference between the items in 1 and 2. Let’s not play any more games in implementing this policy for our kids.”
The province released in July a set of guidelines for the selection, availability, and access of books in school libraries after confirming that several “inappropriate” titles containing graphic content related to sexual activity, nudity, and molestation were available in some kindergarten to Grade 12 libraries.
“After becoming aware of a list of over 200 books that Edmonton Public Schools intended to remove off their shelves, I will be revising the order immediately to ensure that our classic literary works remain in school libraries, while books with graphic pornographic images, such as those depicted below, do not end up in the hands of children,” Nicolaides said in a Sept. 2 social media post.
He included a link to examples of the content found in school libraries that the province aims to keep out of children’s hands, which is the same material flagged when the measures were first announced. It includes explicit sexual content involving both heterosexual and same-sex couples, as well as references to sex between people with large age differences.
After its book list was leaked online, the Edmonton Public School Board said it had heard concerns from families and community members about the titles slated for removal to comply with the provincial standards.
“The Board of Trustees agrees with these concerns and voiced our opposition to the provincial changes before the Ministerial Order was issued,” the board said in an Aug. 29 statement. “As a result of the Ministerial Order, several excellent books will be removed from our shelves this fall.”
After the book list became public, Premier Smith said “Edmonton Public [Schools] is clearly doing a little vicious compliance over what the direction is,” adding that if the school board needed the provincial government to “hold their hand through the process,” the government would “happily work with them” to identify material that is age-inappropriate for students.
“We are trying to take sexually explicit content out of elementary schools that is inappropriate for me to show on the television news at night, and so it is inappropriate for 7-year-olds to see,” she said during an unrelated news conference on Aug. 29.
Following the education minister’s Sept. 2 announcement of a temporary pause on the government directive, Edmonton Public Schools’ board said it was “grateful” for the minister’s “responsiveness to concerns raised by parents, students, educators and the community.”
“We appreciate the Minister’s decision to pause implementation until further notice,” the board said in a Sept. 2 statement. “Our Board remains committed to keeping lines of communication open with the Minister as we continue to work collaboratively with families and the government in support of student learning.”
Advocacy group Parents as First Educators (PAFE) said it supports the “hundreds of thousands” of Alberta parents who oppose having sexually explicit books available to their children at school. The group said it hopes the province will follow through on removing this content.
“Each day these explicit and harmful books remain in children’s hands is one day too many,” Celine Traynor, spokesperson for PAFE, told The Epoch Times in a statement.
Chandra Philip and The Canadian Press contributed to this report.
