FROM THE FRONT LINE: Book Bannings, May 2003

FROM THE FRONT LINE: Book Bannings
Charles Suhor, NCTE/SLATE Field Representative

Since my September SLATE Newsletter report on censorship cases, approximately 57 calls have come in--about the same as the comparable time period last year, when the total was 62.

Unfortunately, instances of banning remain high. Eight challenges (14%) resulted in either censorship of a work or limitations on its use in the English program. But there was a higher rate of positive outcomes when letters of support were requested. Censors prevailed in only two of the sixteen protests in which letters from NCTE/SLATE were part of the defense.

Of course, Council involvement alone is no guarantee of victory. But in some cases a letter can tip the balance in favor of retention. Also, teachers often report that letters, policy statements, pamphlets, website information, and other support boost morale in difficult situations and are practical guides for strategy in meeting challenges. (See Addenda items below.)

All calls receive prompt telephone, fax, or e-mail responses, followed by other action when requested. Listed alphabetically below is a sampling of the cases that dealt with censorship of particular works. Actions taken are italicized. "Rationale(s) sent. . ." indicates that NCTE sent the teachers one or more rationales for the protested work. Letters of support were offered in all cases; they typically go to the school board president or the superintendent. OUTCOMES (when known at press time) are reported.

Overwhelmingly, schools and districts that call NCTE have two policies or practices in place--provisions for a substitute work when a student or parent objects, and an established process for orderly review of challenges that arise. Increasingly, schools also have in place formal or informal procedures through which English language arts teachers collegially select works to be studied.

If you are experiencing a challenge to materials or methods, or if you know someone who is, call either 800-369-6283, extension 3848, or 334-280-4758; or visit http://www.ncte.org/about/issues/censorship?source=gs and click on the "Report a Censorship Incident" option.

BELOVED Toni Morrison (grade 11-12, OR) profanity, sexual content. NCTE Censorship Packet and rationale sent. RETAINED.

THE BLUEST EYE Toni Morrison (grade 11, accelerated, NH) profanity, sexual content. NCTE Censorship Packet, rationale, and letter of support sent. RETAINED.

CATCHER IN THE RYE J.D. Salinger (grade 11, VA) profanity. NCTE Censorship Packet and rationale sent. RETAINED after successful parent-teacher conference.

CATCH-22 Joseph Heller (grade 12 Advanced Placement, OK) violence, profanity, sexual content. NCTE Censorship Packet , rationale , and letter of support sent. RETAINED after parent-teacher conference.

CHOCOLATE WAR Robert Cormier (grade 9, college preparatory, GA) NCTE Censorship Packet , rationale , and letter of support sent. BANNED from classrooms; library access only.

FALLEN ANGELS Walter Dean Myers (grade 9, NE) violence, profanity, sexual content, "lifestyle" depicted. NCTE Censorship Packet and rationale sent. RETAINED.

FAHRENHEIT 451 Ray Bradbury (grade 8, honors. VA) profanity. NCTE Censorship Packet, rationale, and letter of support sent. RETAINED.

THE GILGAMESH EPIC translator Nancy K. Sandars (grade 8, honors, OR) sexual content. NCTE Censorship Packet and letter of support sent; no rationale available. RETAINED.

Addendum: This interesting case was reported by a parent who was indignant about "blacked out" passages in the book. The school was appropriately embarrassed when the local newspaper published a long story and a picture of the student holding up the book.

THE GIVER Lois Lowry (grade 6, IN) suicide, infanticide. NCTE Censorship Packet and rationale sent. RETAINED.

IZZY WILLY NILLY Cynthia Voight (grade 8, SC) profanity. NCTE Censorship Packet and rationale sent. RETAINED.

JOY LUCK CLUB (video) Amy Tan (grade 10, MO) sexual content. NCTE Censorship Packet, rationale, and letter of support sent. RETAINED.

Addendum: After a lengthy battle that focused on R-rated videos, the teacher wrote good-naturedly, "Well, it was anticlimactic. Three of us sat through a three-hour board meeting and nobody noticed the new policy. The union rep assures me that was good. The Board passed the video policy that allows R-rated movies in grades 10-12, with parental permission."

LORDS OF DISCIPLINE Pat Conroy (grade 10, honors, WI) profanity, sexual content, N-word. NCTE Censorship Packet, rationale, and letter of support sent. BANNED at grade 10 level.

Addendum: This protracted case involved a teacher who did everything with professional care and good taste, a superintendent /censor not following the Board's review policy, pressure generated by a conservative radio talk-show host, and other complications. If there is a bright spot, it's the possibility of revision of selection and review policies--and, with luck, adherence to them. Also, the teacher will test the system by teaching the novel in her upper level classes next year.

NATIVE SON Richard Wright (grade 10, accelerated, IL) N-word, profanity, sexual content. NCTE Censorship Packet and rationale sent. RETAINED.

"NEVER MARRY A MEXICAN" (short story) Sandra Cisneros (grade 8, accelerated, TX) NCTE Censorship Packet sent; no rationale available. BANNED.

Addendum: This courageous teacher fought against a stonewalling administration. At one point he took fifteen students to a local Cisneros book-signing, where she heard of the situation and was warm and sympathetic. Ill health, aggravated by the censorship situation, caused the teacher to temporarily leave the profession.

OF MICE AND MEN --(two cases)--John Steinbeck (grade 10, MI) offensive language. NCTE Censorship Packet and rationale sent. RETAINED. Second case: (grade 10, IN) offensive language NCTE Censorship Packet, rationale, and letter of support sent. RETAINED.

Addendum: The Indiana teacher writes, "We have experienced benefits from the situation. Our department chairperson used the NCTE material to develop a clear plan of action for any future challenges, and our administration is now much more aware of what students read and why certain texts are assigned."

ORDINARY PEOPLE Judith Guest (grade 11, CA) inappropriate language NCTE Censorship Packet and rationale sent. RETAINED.

PEDRO AND ME Judd Winnick (grade 7, DE) references to gay sex, AIDS, drugs. NCTE Censorship Packet sent; no rationale available. RETAINED.

Addendum: After the book was banned arbitrarily, the teacher acted forthrightly. "I called our Superintendent directly, reminding him of the school board policy which mandates a review team be assembled...He authorized me to discuss it with my principal and assemble a review team. I did. The team met. The challenge was overturned...I want to thank you for your input and information. I was able to pursue this in a rational and successful manner. The process works and we are now more prepared should such an issue rise again."

POE--COLLECTED SHORT STORIES Edgar Allan Poe (grade 8, PA) violence, horror NCTE Censorship Packet sent; no rationale available. RETAINED.

THE POWER OF ONE Bruce Courtenay (grade 12, TX) obscene language and situations; offensive t o religious principles. NCTE Censorship Packet sent; no rationale available. BANNED from classrooms; library access only.

Addendum: A lamentable series of evasions, manipulations, and arbitrary actions led to the banning of the book. After a bogus review committee banned the book, a legitimately constituted committee's recommendation to retain it was overruled by the administration. The teacher's job was threatened as the principal essentially "acted as an agent for the complaining parents."

SIDDHARTHA Herman Hesse (grade 10, accelerated, ID) sexual content. NCTE Censorship Packet sent; no rationale available. RETAINED.

SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS --(two cases)--David Guterson (grades 9-10, honors, OK) sexual content. NCTE Censorship Packet and rationale sent. RETAINED. Second case: (grade 11, WA) sexual content. NCTE Censorship Packet, rationale, and letter of support sent. RETAINED.

"THE TELLTALE HEART" (short story) Edgar Allan Poe (grade 8, VA) violence. NCTE Censorship Packet and letter of support sent; no rationale available. RETAINED.

A YELLOW RAFT IN BLUE WATER Michael Dorris (grade 10, PA) obscene language, sexual content. NCTE Censorship Packet and rationale sent. RETAINED.

CODA 1--Parents post "reviews" of books in English program. A group of 40 conservative parents in a California district was planning a website on which they would write their views on the suitability of books in the high school English program. During extensive meetings of parents, teachers, board members, and administrators, all acknowledged the parents' right to do this on their own, and a local private school opened its website to them. However, the board emphasized its support for teacher selection of works studied and made it clear that existing district policies for formal review of challenged works would be followed and alternative assignments, upon request, would be given.

CODA 2--Book-banning leads to policy development. In another California district, several books were summarily banned by the school board. Learning of the incident after the fact, NCTE sent a letter of concern and conferred with the library media teacher, who reported, "Your information proved helpful in the following ways. First, the teacher getting all the heat was glad for the professional support...I worked on a committee over the summer developing policy guidelines for review and purchase of curriculum resources...NCTE documents provided excellent templates to develop our own criteria....Things seem to have cooled down considerably."

CODA 3--Administration reverses decision banning student speech on condom distribution. A student in a speech class selected the topic "Condom Distribution in Schools" from a previously approved list, but the administration ordered banning of the speech, citing the district's more recent "abstinence only" policy in the instructional program. The teacher argued that the content of the student's speech was not instruction but a topic that, like others, could develop critical thinking and forensics skills. NCTE sent appropriate materials and supported the teacher's argument that forbidding the speech was censorship. The earlier decision was reversed, and the speech was allowed.

They are concerned that the county school board's decision to ban three books will reflect badly on them. At the same time, the issue has come to the attention of the National Coalition of Teachers of English and the American Library Association.

"Everybody's talking among themselves about it," Kathleen Prine, a junior, said last week. "It's kind of degrading to us, like we're not mature enough to handle those books."

The George County School Board voted to ban three books from a junior accelerated English supplementary reading list. The books are the classic "Of Mice and Men" and two Vietnam War novels, "The Things They Carried" and "Fallen Angels." They reaffirmed the decision last week before considering forming a committee that will handle any future banning requests from their constituents.

The reason the board gave for the ban: profanity. Sex and profanity are the top two reasons people give librarians and schools nationwide when they ask for books to be pulled from shelves, according to the American Library Association.

Beverly Becker, associate director of the Office of Intellectual Freedom for the association, said that libraries and schools reported 515 requests to have books banned last year. That is about 20 percent of the actual requests. Many of the requests are not reported, she said.

"And most are not successful," she said. "Most of the books that are challenged remain available and in use in the schools and libraries."

But not in George County schools. There the board banned the books despite the fact that the school system had in place a policy highly recommended by the library association, where a student is offered alternate books if his parent disapproves of any on the reading lists. The rest of the students are then free to choose.

The association recommends that tack "so one person isn't making decisions for a whole community," she said.

She said that challenging books isn't a rural versus urban issue. She said the organization receives reports of challenges from throughout the nation, "from Maine to Texas and California to Florida."

"It's usually just one parent or a parent and a friend," she said. And that was the case in George County. But the damage, she said, is to restrict the process of teaching critical thinking and decision-making in high school students.

She said fear is at the root of most book-banning attempts. "It's fear of things different, a liberal perspective," she said, "fear of something that's in conflict with their worldview."

The Vietnam War novel "Fallen Angels" was written for young adults and is taught in junior high and high schools across the country, said Charles Suhor, field representative for the Intellectual Freedom Network for the National Coalition of Teachers of English.

"The argument that these books are college material is just bogus," said Suhor, who already had a file on the George County banning when he was interviewed last week.

Children are likely to read them anyway and by allowing them to be taught in the classroom, the student will get the benefit of a teacher's guidance and understanding of the work, he said. "They should be able to talk to their teachers about it."

George County High junior Lauren Brown said, "I think it is very foolish for the school board to try to candy-coat war. It's not like soldiers in war are saying 'dang it.' Our teacher told us in advance that it would have bad language. But that's war."

Classmate Jessica Clark said, "It's not like we don't hear that language here at school, in the halls."

"They can't erase history," Kimberly Davis said, "and that's the way history was. They can't downplay war. People need to know. They don't need to be blind to the way it was."

And Prine said she read "Of Mice and Men" in her sophomore year. Her assessment: "Some of the words weren't nice, but it had a great meaning to it."

How books are selected

George County High School has a pool of several hundred books considered appropriate for supplemental reading, especially for its accelerated English programs. From this pool, teachers collect a group of books to study on certain topics, then the students are asked to select several from the group to read.

The school has a policy that if a parent feels that a book their child selected is inappropriate, they can ask the teacher to help the child select another.

The school board said that a parent complaint about the books spurred their decision to remove three from the list and from the school. They are the John Steinbeck classic, "Of Mice and Men" and two Vietnam War novels, "The Things They Carried" and "Fallen Angels."

Last week, the George County School District would not release the names of the several hundred books in the pool. Superintendent Donnie Howell said he wanted to review the list, and said he expected to make it available early this week.