In 2022, a grandmother in Catawba County, North Carolina, asked the county’s school board to remove 24 books from the district’s libraries. Her request was part of a wave of book challenges across the country.
Michelle Teague said she wanted the books removed for explicit content to which she felt children should not be exposed. Four months after instigating the book challenges and an ensuing debate, Teague filed for election to the Catawba County School Board. By the end of the year, she was sitting on the board that would vote on whether the school should ban the very books she challenged — or change the process by which those books were reviewed.
In 2022, concerned community member Michelle Teague asked that the Catawba County School Board remove 24 books from the district’s libraries. She said these books contained explicit content that children should not be exposed to. Now these books as well as many more are being challenged in libraries across the country.
She is one example of book banning advocates seeking seats of power on North Carolina school boards as the fever pitch for banning books grows nationwide, a Lee Enterprises Public Service Journalism Team investigation shows.