KNOXVILLE — The Knox County School Board met on Monday to discuss proposed changes to Tennessee's book review law following the controversy over the removal and return of Alex Haley's novel "Roots." The book had been removed from school libraries under the state's Age-Appropriate Materials Act, which allows removal of materials containing depictions of sex, nudity, or violence.
Superintendent Jon Rysewyk reversed the decision and ordered "Roots" returned to shelves. Outside the meeting, protesters gathered to voice concerns about how the district reviews and removes library materials. "We should all be fighting for the freedom to read," said Michelle Christian, a protester and board member at The Bottom. "We should trust kids to make the choices that are best for them with the books they want to read."
School board member Katherine Bike supports keeping "Roots" available and has urged the district to reevaluate how it handles challenged books. In a letter to the board, she wrote that books with mature content but educational and historical value should not be removed without deeper consideration. "What does the law require of us, and how, how can we kind of look at these things so that we're not removing these like really important books?" Bike said. "I understand that there are a lot of people that want to protect children. I want to protect children from things actually happening to them, not them just reading about what happened to someone else," she added.
Knox County Schools had procedures in place in 2022 that met policy standards when the Age-Appropriate Materials Act passed, with the only subsequent change being the publication of classroom library materials. A 2024 amendment to the law removed consideration of a book’s serious literary, artistic, or historic value during reviews. A policy review meeting is scheduled for July to examine compliance and clarify staff versus board responsibilities.
State Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, attended the rally and criticized the law: "Sometimes state law doesn't make sense. They've made a huge mistake. If they want to continue down this path, they can, but it's the wrong path, and they're on the wrong side of history."