Protection or overreach? My thoughts on Alberta’s explicit book ban

Editor’s note: This article was written based on the Alberta government’s original ban issued in July. The province has since revised its rules this month to ban works with explicit images of sexual acts from schools.

The Alberta provincial government is advising school libraries to remove sexually explicit books from their shelves by Oct. 1, a move that raises questions about the balance between protecting children and preserving freedom of expression.

As per the province’s Ministry of Education, students won’t be allowed to access books that contain detailed and clear depictions of sexual acts, including sexual penetration, masturbation, and other sexual physical contact.

Materials discussing puberty, menstruation, pregnancy, kissing, or hand-holding will remain accessible to students, as well as religious texts, such as the Bible, to ensure freedom of religion. 

Alberta Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said this move is not about erasing certain narratives, but ensuring an age-appropriate standard for reading materials in school libraries. Nicolaides also noted that he himself does not have any control to dictate the keeping and removal of specific books under the Education Act and that there is no particular enforcement of the guidelines, but he trusts schools will follow the policy.

Like every coin has two sides, this ban from Alberta has its positives and negatives.

People supporting the policy might argue that it is a positive step towards safeguarding children from reading materials that are not appropriate for their age. Like how there are age ratings for movies and video games, there should be a boundary within education and terms on what must go out and what should not.

The government is clearly giving librarians and teachers a reference point in terms of what’s acceptable by defining what sexually explicit books are. This might also be a comfort to parents, whose perspective was overlooked until recently. 

However, this ban certainly has a few downsides as well. In removing what’s deemed “sexually explicit,” there runs the risk of removing books that can have broader political, cultural, and ideological impacts. Some might worry that 2SLGBTQIA+ narratives could be targeted and that sexual assault survival stories or honest depictions of adolescence could find themselves on the chopping block at disproportional levels.

I believe Alberta has a clear separation between what is sexually explicit and what isn’t. The province not banning content depicting puberty, menstruation, and pregnancy is reasonable. These guidelines are not outright cutting materials with health, hygiene, and sexuality content as a whole. I think the provincial government wants students to not have access to something that’s unsuitable for their age.

However, if students have limitations to the type of content they can access in schools, they could become more curious and find a means to investigate a topic further since it’s going to be more suspicious and curious to them after the ban. It’s just like when you hide something from a toddler and they tend to go after it vigorously. Students could go off on the internet, creating fake profiles to get access to the very information that’s being removed from their schools. 

Parents may also feel uncomfortable to talk about such topics when asked unexpected questions from their kids, especially if they are at the age where they’re not supposed to know about the subject they’re inquiring about just yet. 

Personally, I would not recommend B.C. copy this idea. Instead, there should be age-appropriate content guidelines that are not directed by the government, but rather done by the independent educators, children’s psychologists, librarians, and teachers in the field. Books should be reviewed by the local school boards with community input, as opposed to a top-down provincial directive. This would help create a balance between protecting minors and avoiding overreach. 

If I were a young student in elementary school, I might not notice or care much about the kind of books outlined in the ban. On the other hand, an older me in high school would have questions about the ban, especially since I’m already learning about sexuality in health classes and about the human body in general. It would be really frustrating to not be able to read books that depict real-life situations, which have educational value. However, fiction is not always the same as real life. 

The intent behind Alberta’s new policy to protect young readers is understandable — to an extent. But rather than imposing a blanket ban, a balanced community review process would be a better option for both student well-being and intellectual freedom.