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Books by Margaret Atwood, Alan Moore, Aldous Huxley, Philip Roth, George R. R. Martin and dozens of other authors will be pulled from the shelves of Edmonton school libraries this fall to comply with sweeping content restrictions imposed by Alberta’s United Conservative government.
A list of books produced by the Edmonton Public School Board (EPSB), marked as an internal working document not for distribution, was posted to social media on Aug. 28.
“Following a division review process, the following books have been identified as containing explicit sexual content. These materials are to be removed from all libraries accessible to students in Kindergarten through Grade 12,” the document reads.
The list includes 221 novels, graphic novels, novellas and manga from more than 90 authors.
The July Ministerial Order from Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides bans school libraries from carrying “materials containing explicit sexual content.” It also restricts “non-explicit sexual content” to students in grade 10 and above. Schools have until Oct. 1 to remove any explicit materials.
EPSB confirmed the authenticity of the document posted to social media. Board Chair Julie Kusiek told the Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF) in an email that families and community members have already raised numerous concerns to the board about the books that will be removed from Edmonton Public Schools “as a result of the Government of Alberta’s Ministerial Order on the Standards for the Selection, Availability, and Access of School Library Materials.
“The Board of Trustees agrees with these concerns and voiced our opposition to the provincial changes before the Ministerial Order was issued. As a result of the Ministerial Order, several excellent books will be removed from our shelves this fall,” Kusiek said.
“Division staff worked over the summer to ensure that only books that directly met the criteria in the Ministerial Order were added to the division’s removal list.”
Books tagged as “inappropriate” by government staff
The Government of Alberta says that the content guidelines being enforced are not a ban on books and are limited to keeping “age-inappropriate” material out of the hands of students.
Internal emails obtained by the IJF through freedom-of-information requests show that political staff within the Ministry of Education drew on databases of previously banned books in the U.S., the Moms for Liberty-affiliated BookLooks.org, and examples submitted by “parental rights” groups to create a list of titles. The workers then checked the library catalogues of Edmonton and Calgary’s public schools for the titles on that list.
Several titles that were identified by ministry staff also appear on the list of books now being pulled from Edmonton school libraries, including Watchmen, by Alan Moore; Saga, by Brian K. Vaughan; Blankets, by Craig Thompson; Flamer, by Mike Curato; Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel; Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth; Choke, by Chuck Palahniuk; and Gender Queer, by Maia Kobabe.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, which won the Governor General’s Award for English-language fiction, is also being removed from Edmonton Public School libraries. The graphic novel version of Atwood’s classic appears on both BookLooks.org and a list of banned books from Austin Public Library staff, which was referenced by ministry staff.
In an email, Nicolaides told the IJF he is aware of the list EPSB has created of books to be removed from libraries but said the government didn’t provide a list of titles to be removed to the school division.
“Children should not be exposed to content like oral sex, sex toy use, or child molestation and that is why we created this policy. The Ministerial Order is clear that school libraries are not permitted to include library materials containing explicit sexual content. Non-explicit sexual content may be accessible to students in Grade 10 and above, provided it is age-appropriate,” Nicolaides said.
“We have asked Edmonton Public to clarify why these books were selected to be pulled, and we will work with them to ensure the standards are accurately implemented. We did not provide this list to EPSB.”
Nicolaides also said that the EPSB list does not differentiate between K-9 students and high school grades, which have different degrees of content restrictions.
In an op-ed published in the Edmonton Journal on July 29, Howard Sapers and Anaïs Bussières McNicoll of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) said that despite Nicolaides objections to the government’s guidelines being described as a book ban, “its direct effect is to force school authorities across the province to remove from their libraries a host of books deemed inappropriate by the state.” Books like George Orwell’s 1984 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale would end up being banned from school libraries, they said.
Nicolaides dismissed the CCLA’s assertion that these two books would be removed as a “completely false and shockingly deceptive claim” in his own opinion piece the following week.
When asked to respond to the news that The Handmaid’s Tale was among the books being removed as a result of the province’s new materials standards, Nicolaides told the IJF that Alberta Education “will be reviewing the list and working with all school boards to ensure the policy is being implemented appropriately with the intent of ensuring young kids are not exposed to sexually explicit books.”
In a statement, Alberta’s New Democrat Shadow Minister for Education Amanda Chapman said that with swelling student populations and an impending teacher’s strike the UCP government’s focus “could not be more misplaced.
“The UCP government has chosen to prioritize banning books over preventing a strike. They have ignored teachers’ and parents’ clear and consistent requests for reasonably sized classrooms, supports for kids with special needs, and more funding. Instead, they’ve set their sights on keeping the works of prolific Canadian authors like Margaret Atwood out of the classroom,” Chapman said.
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