Book Banning Gets a Bad Review
How a Western North Carolina community defended their high school curriculum
What if I went to the public library to check out The Handmaid’s Tale and they said they didn’t have a copy? What if Amazon, Abe Books and even the AAUW Book Sale, all told me the same thing? What if a high school student asked her English teacher about it and was told, “I don’t know what you’re talking about”?
I’ve just given five examples of people, businesses or institutions who are afraid of retaliation from the powers in charge.
This must be what censorship feels like at the beginning.
The first banned book in America was William Pynchon’s The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption, 1650.
More recently in Boone, NC, in 2014 a months-long case was decided in favor of not banning Isabel Allende’s 1982 novel The House of the Spirits from the Watauga County High School curriculum.
The final public discussion was held at a Board of Education meeting. The complaining parent, Chastity Lesesne, and the defending teacher, Mary Kent Whitaker, each had 30 minutes to speak.
On February 28, 2014, Jerry Williamson in his blog, Watauga Watch, reported eye-witness details:
As I listened to the book challenger speak, all I could hear was the implication that she believed her standards for decency should be imposed on everybody.
… [Lesesne’s] biggest complaint -- other than "pornography" -- was that teens who selected the alternate [book that was offered to students instead of The House of the Spirits] were deprived of educational services in the form of classroom discussions. She called this discrimination.
I don’t see the sense in this, but she must have felt it strengthened her argument.
Williamson goes on,
In contrast, the teacher talked at length about how hard educators work to incorporate parental requests. … Ms. Whitaker said she has tried repeatedly to find a book that would meet criteria set by the state (including Lexile score and focus on Latin American literature), but each book that she had found contained material that would have been found objectionable by some readers.
… She mentioned the fact that Watauga High School ranks third in NC in test scores, and the two schools that scored higher teach the book. How could our students compete if they are denied access to it?
Sadly, she mentioned the fact that teachers have experienced threats and are uneasy about their jobs. They need to know that the School Board supports them.
Wonderfully surprising to me, another voice in this debate came in the form of a letter to the School Board from the author of the book in question.
Allende said in her letter,
Dear Watauga County Board of Education,
I find myself in the unusual and awkward position of having to “defend” my novel The House of the Spirits that risks being banned from a high school in Boone, North Carolina. Banning of books is a common practice in police states, like Cuba or North Korea, and by religious fundamentalist groups like the Taliban, but I did not expect it in our democracy.
No student is forced to read the book. Teachers like to teach it because they believe it gives the students insights into Latin American literature, history, politics, social issues, and customs. They usually offer their students other options but most students choose the book, they enjoy it and often they write to me.
… As you know, it takes just one parent who disapproves of a book to pressure the school and eventually the Board of Education. In this case one person has circulated fragments of the novel—taken out of context—among parents who probably have not read the book. The fragments refer mostly to sexual content. The plan is [my italics] to gather support to ban the book completely, even as optional reading.
She adds that young adults today will not be surprised or
particularly offended by the strong scenes from The House of the Spirits, which are always part of the historical and political content of the novel.
I have become aware of this unfortunate situation, and I am sending you a copy of The House of the Spirits by mail, although I realize how busy you are and I cannot expect you to read it,
Sincerely,
Isabel Allende
writer
On February 27, 2014, the Watauga School Board resolved the issue by a 3-2 vote in favor of keeping the book in the 10th grade curriculum.
Watauga Watch reported on February 28 that the swing vote was cast by Ron Henries, a School Board member who said that he “personally did not like the book, but he listened carefully to parents who approached him asking that he allow their teens to study the book under the guidance of Ms. Whitaker.”
Besides, Henries said, only four students chose the book for the class, and “in the future, if most parents do not want their teens to study it, the use of the book will die like the dinosaurs.”
In researching this post, I learned about Watauga County’s guidelines for any requested book banning.
In Watauga County, the process for challenging educational texts has three steps: a review by a school advisory committee, a review by a Board of Education advisory committee, then a review by the entire Board of Education. Decisions made by the board apply to all schools in the system.
This Western North Carolina community’s strong, civil reaction to the book challenger’s argument was an example of democracy at work.
This is encouraging. Let’s be ready.
All I can say is WOW! CONCERNING!
"I cannot live without books" Thomas Jefferson, June 10, 1815
....and true yet today!