Utah’s Statewide Book Banning Machine Is Now at 22 Titles
The Utah State Board of Education has banned three additional books from every public school in the state. This brings Utah’s total number of banned titles to 22 under the controversial law known as HB29. This systematic approach to censorship is breaking the foundations of education in the state.
The newly banned books are:
"Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West," by Gregory Maguire
"Nineteen Minutes," by Jodi Picoult
"The Perks of Being a Wallflower," by Stephen Chbosky
These are not obscure titles. They are widely recognized works of American literature, bestsellers, award-winning novels, and the basis for acclaimed films and stage productions. These books address topics like bullying, trauma, identity, belonging, empathy, and moral complexity, resonating with young readers. Yet in Utah, these books are now forbidden statewide. This was not a collective decision but the actions of a small group of local officials who now hold sweeping, centralized authority over every student.
How Utah’s Statewide School Library Censorship System Works
HB29, signed into law by Governor Spencer Cox in 2024 and implemented in 2025, created a mechanism that is now operating exactly as its critics warned. Under this law, if three school districts (or two districts and five charter schools) decide a book meets Utah’s broad definition of “objective sensitive material,” their decision automatically triggers a statewide ban in all public schools.
Fewer than 10% of Utah’s districts and charters could impose a content decision on 100% of Utah’s students.
Once a ban is triggered, the Utah State Board of Education may hold a hearing within 60 days. If no hearing is held, the ban remains in place. Even if a book is reinstated, the original districts can still keep it removed locally. This is not a balanced review process. It is a one-way system that removes books but rarely restores them.
For decades, courts have recognized that students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate. Removing books for political or ideological reasons suppresses ideas, restricts access to information, and violates students’ right to receive knowledge.
Public education relies on professional judgment of school librarians and educators, local parental involvement, and educational expertise. HB29 replaces this with a political mechanism that treats all students and communities as identical. Now, a student in Moab can lose access to a book because of decisions made in Davis County. A family in Logan can be overruled by officials in Tooele. Local school boards lose their authority to make decisions for their own communities.
The authors of these banned books have spoken out about their impact: Jodi Picoult has shared that hundreds of students credit “Nineteen Minutes” with helping to prevent violence and ease loneliness. Stephen Chbosky has received letters for decades from young people whose isolation was eased by “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” Gregory Maguire’s “Wicked” encourages students to examine the nature of evil, power, and injustice—the very questions schools are meant to explore.
By banning these books, Utah signals that its students are too fragile to confront reality through literature. This is not protection. It is censorship. HB29 takes decisions that should belong to families, educators, librarians, and locally elected school boards, and gives them to a small number of politically motivated actors with statewide impact.
Utah Stands at a Decision Point
As the Let Utah Read coalition warned Governor Cox in 2024:
“Privileging a few individuals with the ability to dictate educational content allows for the decisions in a small number of school districts to override the decisions made in every other district in Utah… HB29 undermines the essence of local control, disenfranchising elected school boards and robbing them of their vital role in shaping curricula tailored to the unique needs of their communities.”
When the threshold for statewide censorship is this low, it creates incentives for coordinated campaigns, ideological targeting, and manufactured moral panic. The structure of HB29 enables political actors to game the system and use a few districts to control education for the entire state. When the state replaces professional judgment and parental involvement with political censorship, it does more than remove books. It weakens society itself.
EveryLibrary is a proud member of the Let Utah Read coalition. We stand with Utah families, educators, librarians, and students who believe that a free society requires free minds and free access to ideas. This is not about protecting children from harm. It is about controlling what young people are allowed to think, feel, question, and imagine.