An effort to overturn Utah’s sensitive materials law, which allows the removal of certain books from public schools, has another acclaimed author’s name behind it: The late poet Maya Angelou.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah announced Thursday that it amended a lawsuit filed in January against the Utah State Board of Education and others. The amended lawsuit adds the Caged Bird Legacy, the entity run by Angelou’s family to oversee her literary works, to the list of plaintiffs.
The group joins the estate of Kurt Vonnegut and three living authors, Elana K. Arnold, Ellen Hopkins and Amy Reed. The authors’ works have either been put on the statewide ban list or removed in some districts.
The amended lawsuit states that Angelou’s 1969 autobiography “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” has been removed from shelves in two Utah school districts. If three districts opt to remove a book, it would be banned in all schools statewide, as 22 other titles have been.
In “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Angelou, who died in 2014, wrote about her childhood in the South, dealing with racism both overt and subtle from her neighbors and the community. She also recounted a sexual assault when she was 8, the lingering effects of that trauma, and a pregnancy when she was in high school.
Read Sean P. Means' full story at sltrib.com.
This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.