WEAK NOT WICKED

Utah Lawmakers Just Put ‘Wicked’ on the Banned List

The Utah State Board of Education added the novel ‘Wicked’ to its banned book list.

Utah lawmakers have now gone after the Wicked Witch. Gregory Maguire’s best-selling novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, has been added to Utah’s growing list of banned books for public schools. The novel is the inspiration for both the Broadway show and the Wicked films. The Utah State Board of Education added Wicked to its prohibited list on Jan. 5, making it one of 22 books in the process of removal under Utah’s sensitive materials law, which orders schools to remove titles flagged by state officials. The updated list includes Wicked and two other titles, The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Nineteen Minutes. The move has sparked a legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a lawsuit on behalf of authors Elana K. Arnold, Ellen Hopkins, and Amy Reed, the Kurt Vonnegut estate, and two anonymous Utah public high school students. ACLU attorneys told Playbill that Utah is violating the First Amendment by removing books with clear literary and educational value from schools. Vonnegut’s daughter, Nanette Vonnegut, echoed that concern, telling the outlet her father viewed libraries as among the nation’s “most vital public institutions,” adding that the fight now is about protecting young people’s freedom “to read, think, and grow.”