Knox County removes Roots from libraries

Knox County Schools removed Alex Haley’s “Roots” from its library shelves this week, adding the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1976 novel to a district list of banned titles, according to district statements and local news reports. District spokeswoman Carly Harrington said the book was reviewed under Tennessee’s Age-Appropriate Materials Act and removed after a committee found one passage in chapter 84 violated the law. The move drew immediate attention in East Tennessee because Haley spent part of his life in the region and is commemorated there with a public statue in Knoxville and the Alex Haley farm in Clinton. The district said the decision was based on state legal standards, not on the book’s literary or historical standing. ### Which passage triggered the removal? Carly Harrington said “Roots” was “recently elevated to the district’s review committee” for consideration of a passage in chapter 84. After review, the committee determined that the identified section met the legal threshold for “sadomasochistic abuse” under the Tennessee statute, Harrington told local outlets. (wbir.com) Tennessee’s library guidance says material that contains nudity or descriptions or depictions of sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence or sadomasochistic abuse is not appropriate for K-12 school library collections. A 2025 Tennessee attorney general opinion said local school bodies have broad discretion in how they adopt and implement procedures under the Age-Appropriate Materials Act. (wate.com) ### Does the district say this is a full classroom ban? Knox County Schools said the library removal does not by itself bar the book from classroom use. Harrington said a text removed under the Age-Appropriate Materials Act may still be used “during direct instruction” in classes such as AP or dual-enrollment English if it aligns with course standards and appears on the syllabus at the start of the year. (tn.gov) WBIR reported the law allows material to be taught in class while requiring it to be removed from school library shelves. Knox County Schools also told WBIR that concerns can be raised by staff, students or parents, and that the district does not track or document the original source of a concern as part of the review process. (wate.com) ### Why has this book drawn particular attention in Knoxville? Alex Haley had longstanding ties to Tennessee, including East Tennessee. Local reports said Haley spent some of his later years at a farm in Clinton, and Knoxville has a statue of Haley in Haley Heritage Square. Richard Griffin, site manager at the Alex Haley Museum in Henning, told WKRN that Haley’s work brought family storytelling about slavery and ancestry “to the forefront.” Rev. (wbir.com) Renee Kesler, president of the Beck Cultural Exchange Center, told the station that the book “is still informing us” and called it “a true book of history.” ### How large is Knox County’s broader removal list? Knox News reported that the removal of “Roots” was part of a broader district ban that now covers 119 titles. An MSN pickup of the reporting said the district list stood at 124 titles as of May 2026, but the primary local reporting available in search results cited 119. (wkrn.com) WATE reported Knox County Schools had already removed books including “Water for Elephants,” “A Court of Thorns and Roses” and “A Clockwork Orange” under the same law. The district said decisions to remove books are based on the content under review and the applicable legal standard, and that a work’s broader themes or historical significance are not part of that legal test. (knoxnews.com) ### How does this fit into the wider Tennessee and national record? PEN America said its 2024-2025 Index of School Book Bans recorded 6,870 instances of book bans across 23 states and 87 public school districts. PEN America also said it has documented nearly 23,000 public-school book bans nationwide since 2021. PEN America said in a May 7 report that censorship of nonfiction and history-related books has risen, while Tennessee has remained one of the states with heavy school-library removals under state law. (wate.com) The group maintains a searchable national database of school book bans that readers can use to track district-level actions. (pen.org) Knox County Schools’ next public record on the issue is likely to be its updated banned-books list and any course syllabi that keep “Roots” in direct classroom instruction, according to the district’s stated policy. PEN America’s searchable ban index and local reporting from Knoxville outlets are also likely to provide the next documented updates. (wate.com) (pen.org)