A school board in Matanuska-Susitna, Alaska, has voted to remove famous written works like Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” from the curriculum for elective high school english courses, citing their “controversial” content.

According to CNN, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School Board voted last week to axe those books and three others –Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man,” Joseph Heller’s "Catch-22" and Tim O'Brien’s “The Things They Carried” – from the reading list for the local district’s High School English Elective Curriculum.

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The board reportedly approved the removal of those books in 5-2 vote last week.

A flier was reportedly given to members of the school board by the school district that laid out summaries of each of the books and listed reasons for which each of the works were being challenged.

The flier said Angelou’s book had been challenged because it contained “sexually explicit material, such as the sexual abuse the author suffered as a child, and its ‘antiwhite’ messaging.”

“The Great Gatsby” was challenged due to its “language and sexual references,” the flier stated, and the “Invisible Man” was challenged due to content containing “language, rape and incest.”

For “Catch-22,” the flier said: “There are a handful of racial slurs, the characters speak with typical “military men” misogyny and racist attitudes of the time. There are scenes of violence both hand to hand and with guns, and violence against women.”

And “The Things They Carried” had been challenged for its “profanity and sexual references,” the flier stated.

During the meeting last week in which board members decided to remove the books from school district's curriculum, Jim Hart, vice president of the board, reportedly said: “If I were to read these in a corporate environment, in an office environment, I would be dragged into EO.”

“The question is why this is acceptable in one environment and not another,” he continued.

Dianne K. Shibe, who serves as president of the Mat-Su Education Association teachers union, told NBC News that many in the local community were surprised by the vote by the school board.

However, she said the move is “not set in stone” and that the union will be calling on the board to revisit their vote.

“The union is all about educating students and this flies in the face of educating students,” she said.

Hart told NBC News that, despite the vote by the school board to remove the books from reading lists for high school elective courses, the books are still available at school libraries.

But, since that vote, a local bookstore owner told the news agency that copies of those books from flying off her shelves.

“People who had read the books years ago are buying them to read again and to give away,” Mary Ann Cockle, who owns Fireside Books in Palmer, told the outlet.

“Our biggest outpouring of support are people buying the books and donating them or leaving them to us to distribute for free,” she added.