Central Bucks released the reports on books it’s banned and kept. Here’s what they show.

The Central Bucks School District has released reports that give a window into how it evaluates whether a book is removed from its libraries, a process that has drawn intense controversy as more than 60 books have been challenged.

While the report shows checked boxes indicating the books contained specific forms of sexual content prohibited under a district policy passed last year, they offer no insight into the discussions of the committees that decided to ban Gender Queer and This Book is Gay.

“They’re not very transparent,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, who reviewed the reports at The Inquirer’s request.

The district decided to keep three other books, Beyond Magenta, Lawn Boy, and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. Here’s what the reports say about the books, and what to know about the pending challenges.

The district published an online log this week of books facing possible removal, along with reports for the five books that have already been evaluated.

Those five were reviewed not in response to formal challenges from community members, but because they “were raised throughout the debate” around the district’s library policy, Central Bucks superintendent, Abram Lucabaugh, said earlier this year.

The policy, passed last July, said no materials in district libraries shall contain specific types of “sexualized content,” including “visual or visually implied depictions of sexual acts or simulations of such acts” and “explicit written descriptions of sexual acts.” (In elementary school libraries, “visual depictions of nudity or implied nudity” and “implied written descriptions of sexual acts” are also prohibited, while in middle school, visual depictions of nudity are prohibited except for “materials with diagrams about anatomy for science or content relating to classical works of art.”)

The reports say the books were evaluated by committees of administrators and educators who read the books in their entirety, and also considered the district’s library policy and administrative regulation implementing it.

The committees included the district’s library coordinator, one or two administrators, and two or three educators. The reports do not name the members.

Each report includes a section for describing the book’s literary merit, quoting professional reviews and awards. No commentary from committee members is included.

The next section includes a series of boxes to check regarding categories of sexual content prohibited by the district. For Gender Queer — a graphic memoir by Maia Kobabe about coming out as nonbinary that has drawn backlash for illustrations of sexual acts — the committee checked “yes” to questions on whether any excerpts contain “visual or visually implied depictions of sexual acts or simulations of such acts,” or “written descriptions of sexual acts.”

Based on the committee’s reconsideration “as outlined in this report,” it voted to remove Gender Queer. The report included a checked box indicating all members “contributed input,” and all voted.

“The decision is unanimous,” the report said. The same was true with the other four book decisions.

The reports below were issued by the district on its decisions to ban Gender Queer and to keep Lawn Boy, a novel by Jonathan Evison.

The reports don’t reveal how the committees tasked with evaluating the books in question considered the value to students, Caldwell-Stone said.

She said Gender Queer and This Book is Gay — a nonfiction book by Juno Dawson about LGBTQ relationships that includes descriptions of sexual acts — “can provide valuable information to older adolescents that have these questions.”

Given the lack of information about how the books’ merits were weighed compared to their sexual content, it appears they were removed based on excerpts, Caldwell-Stone said. But evaluated as a whole, she said, “these books are not obscene.”

A district spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on how literary merit factored into the reviews.

Aimee Emerson, president of the Pennsylvania School Library Association and a librarian in McKean County, noted that the Central Bucks committees included a librarian, which she called vital. But she said the reports provide “no context as to the particular discussions and decisions” made by the committees.

Emerson noted that many books being challenged in Pennsylvania and nationally tell stories of LGBTQ people or people of color.

“These campaigns attempt to stigmatize diverse books in our libraries, and diminish our understanding of the human experience, particularly of those in minority communities,” she said, adding that limiting access to books “does not protect young people from the complex and challenging world that confronts them.”

Central Bucks has been accused by the American Civil Liberties Union of creating a hostile environment for LGBTQ students — an allegation that an internal investigation commissioned by the district concluded had no merit.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which has been investigating the ACLU complaint against Central Bucks, found earlier this month that a Georgia school district did not take sufficient steps to “ameliorate any resultant racially and sexually hostile environment” when it removed library books it said contained sexually explicit content.

In addition to the five books already reviewed, challenges are pending against 65 other books in Central Bucks. While alleging violations of the district’s policy on sexualized content, book challengers also cited “inflammatory racial commentary,” discussion of gender identity and abortion, according to records provided by the district.

The district did not respond to a question about the time frame for reviewing the 65 books.

Central Bucks has not revealed the names of the people who filed the challenges. After The Inquirer and others appealed to Pennsylvania’s Office of Open Records seeking the names, lawyer J. Chadwick Schnee petitioned to intervene on behalf of two people who had submitted challenges.

Schnee — who has represented people opposed to mask mandates and, more recently, a man accused of taking a gun to a Central Bucks board meeting — said his clients’ book challenges had triggered “noncriminal investigations” in the district, exempting the records from public disclosure. The open records office agreed.

The Central Bucks challengers drew heavily from Booklooks, a website affiliated with the conservative Moms for Liberty group that details “objectionable” material in books.

Nationally, book challenges have been fueled by “a minuscule number of hyperactive adults,” some organized by groups like Moms for Liberty, according to a Washington Post analysis. The news organization reported last week that just 11 people were responsible for the majority of book challenges filed across the country in 2021-22.

“A student should be entitled to know who initiated this process,” said Caldwell-Stone of the ALA. “It does involve a student’s First Amendment rights.”