School board approves appeals committee recommendation on three challenged books after heated debate

The Davis School District Board of Education on the floor of its meeting considered appeals over three books challenged by members of the public and parents and ultimately approved the appeals committee’s recommendation to retain Drama and to move Twisted and The Hate You Give into a subjective-review process rather than returning them directly to library shelves.

The decision matters because it determines whether the two books will be immediately removed from circulation under the district’s objective statutory test for “sensitive material” or placed into a subsequent subjective-review process that evaluates community standards, appropriateness and educational value.

Board members debated multiple procedural steps before the final action. A motion by a board member to uphold the committee’s determination that Twisted…