AUBURN聽鈥 The Auburn school board has been hearing from parents upset about the presence of a nonfiction young adult book in the high school library, bringing a debate that's been taking place in multiple states to the city school district.
The book is "All Boys Aren't Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto," by Published in April 2020, it recounts the experiences of Johnson, a journalist and activist, growing up as a queer Black person.
Those calling for the book's removal from high school libraries say it has passages that are too sexually explicit for students, with some claiming it's akin to child pornography. Others, including many libraries and intellectual freedom advocates, have said removing the book would be censorship and countered that Johnson's work, including the passages in question and its overall context, speaks to issues young people may be dealing with.
Johnson has been outspoken in defense of the book. In November, they sent a video to a Florida school board that was played during a meeting in which its removal was being discussed, according to
"There is no reason for us to pretend that the world is not going to expose our youth and our teens to these very heavy subjects and heavy topics in my book," Johnson said, adding that the material some have labeled as obscene appears in two chapters and provides teenagers guidance on agency and consent. "Realistically, they are already experiencing these things and my book is teaching them how to deal with these things."
Board meeting comments
At an Auburn Enlarged School City School District Board of Education meeting Dec. 14 at the Auburn High School Library, resident Barb Stotler said during the public comment portion of the meeting that she had arrived to the board's Nov. 16 meeting early to see if the library had "All Boys Aren't Blue," adding that she heard about the book on social media and about "other schools having a fit about this book." She said it did not take her long to find it at the library.
"This is a book on homosexuality. You could open the book into various places within and it was just pornography, nothing more," she said.聽
Stotler said the book contains themes of death, homophobia, transphobia, incest and sexual assault, and mentioned that other LGBTQ-themed books at the library feature sexual assault, rape, depression, internalized homophobia and more.
"My question is why are these books here? What possible educational value can be derived from these books, OK? Are we supporting our LGBTQ children or are we promoting it?" she said.
At the public comments portion of the board's Jan. 11 meeting, more people took to the microphone to question the book's presence at the school. Isabelle Wellauer, who ran for a school board seat in May, said the book contains "graphic homosexual sex" while noting she would be just as alarmed if the book depicted "such graphic sex between a man and a woman."聽
"The fact is, I am against child pornography, and I am totally opposed to any adult providing pornography to any minor. This author gives great detail in describing sexual acts between minors and adolescents, which in the state of New York is a crime," she said.聽
Wellauer read off some passages from the book describing an anal sex experience.
"Who's ultimately responsible and held accountable for these books? Where is the line and who decides where it's crossed, because that book crosses my line and I'd like to know how many of you it crosses the line (for) as well," she said, with some crowd members clapping as she finished.
Stotler came up to speak at the Jan. 11 meeting, as well. She said LGBTQ-themed books are "not the only category of book that has material that's not age-appropriate. It simply happens to be the category of this book." She noted "All Boys Aren't Blue" has been removed from some school libraries in several states as of mid-November, and said she feels the book isn't "age-appropriate."
"I purchased the book and I'm in the process of reading it. There is value in it, with the exception of a section that Isabelle read that's very sexually explicit and would likely be considered pornography," Stotler said, questioning whether this portion of the book "should be considered sexual grooming."
"Are we encouraging minors to engage in sexual activity when their emotional brains are not yet developed? Is encouraging pornography encouraging sexual activity? Is allowing this book to remain in the library encouraging pornography? Those are the issues here," Stotler said. "It isn't the message that it's OK to be gay, that's wrong, it's the message that it's OK to engage in sexual activity at too young of an age."
She also compared it to letting a child watch pornography or read "Playboy" or "Hustler."
Elizabeth A. Cuddy also spoke, saying that people against the sexual context of the book are unfairly being called homophobic.
"It just seems that if you or somebody expresses an opinion or a concern that aligns with conservative, traditional or,聽dare I even say the "R" word,聽Republican values, you're personally attacked," she said.
Book challenge policy
Auburn has a formal policy, required by state law, regarding requests to have books removed from schools. Auburn Superintendent Jeff Pirozzolo said in an interview with 新加坡多多开奖记录 that a person verbally voiced concern about "All Boys Aren't Blue" in December, which prompted the district's policy committee to review board policies regarding book challenges. School administrators have also reviewed the book, which is not a part of any curriculum at the school but students can access it at the high school library.
According to the district's聽 policy, last updated in January 2004, any criticism of instructional materials in the schools need to be submitted in writing to the superintendent. A committee that includes the building principal and librarian must then be designated by the superintendent to investigate and judge the material in question by the principles and qualitative standards in the district's "Selection of Library and Audiovisual Materials" policy.
Despite the comments made at school board meetings, Pirozzolo said he has not received a written challenge regarding "All Boys Aren't Blue." He also said he hadn't heard of the book until the concerns came up and that to his knowledge, no student at the high school had actually checked out the book as of last Wednesday. The verbal complaint from December did not mention the book's LGBTQ aspects, Pirozzolo added, but concerned the material deemed sexually explicit.
Pirozzolo said the district cannot simply ban books; it must follow its policies that are based off of state law. "Whenever you look at board policies, they are not arbitrarily made up by a school district," he said.聽
Pirozzolo said he wishes library systems across the country would have a ratings scale similar to movies, with a system indicating the age a book is recommended for. That said, he acknowledged it would be difficult to classify all of the books that already exist.
"If there was more guidance from a state level (on) what is age appropriate in high school libraries, junior high libraries, elementary libraries, it would make it a little bit easier for us but then again, it may be a system that could never be put into place because of all the books that are already out there already," he said.聽
Ian Phillips, Auburn's school board president, said he believes there is a movement "by certain elements in society" to ban books in libraries, saying that "All Boys Aren't Blue" is one of those works.
"It's very common, you can find other people in other parts of the country that are reading passages from a 300-page book to try to incite discomfort in people to try to get a book banned," Phillips said.
He also noted that the district has a policy reviewing these book challenges and that what one parent may find objectionable may not be seen that way by another, pointing out that "Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare centers on a relationship involving a teenager and "then glamorizes suicide" and that the popular teen "Twilight" series depicts sexuality.
Philips said he feels it is important to consider the wider context of "All Boys Aren't Blue." He mentioned that the book has received recognition from librarians, such as the Young Adult Library Services Association division of the American Library Association naming it one of the 2021 Teen鈥檚 Top Ten winners.
"This is something that's been read by professionals and they think it's appropriate," Phillips said.
Another parental perspective
Christopher Patch, a parent to an LGBTQ youth, said he has read the book and supports it. Patch, who runs Pride House, a program at Westminster Presbyterian Church welcoming 13-18 year old LGBTQ+ youth and allies, said the book is meant for ages 14-18, the age of most high school students.
"What's the point of removing a book from the library that speaks to real-world circumstances, experiences, emotions, especially from a Black and LGBTQ+ perspective?" he said. "I think it's extremely dangerous once we start going down that road, and damaging."
Patch said it's important to note that the author, George M. Johnson, not only explores their coming out experience in the book but that the book acknowledges sexual abuse. He said the passages of the book that are being called sexually explicit evoke emotions and experiences that happen to young people.
"What this book does, in my opinion, is it speaks a language. I'm not talking about grammar, I'm talking about the language of who you are while you're going through this journey. And that book, in a sense, says, 'Listen, this is very real and these are the real emotions, these are real thoughts, and it's OK to have these,'" Patch said. "I just think that it does get very tricky once we start looking at these (and saying), 'We're not going to support these emotions, we're going to invalidate these emotions, we're going to try and hinder these emotions and these words.'"
Book challenges increase
Library and intellectual freedom groups say efforts to remove books from library shelves have grown considerably in recent years.
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, told 新加坡多多开奖记录 that the office has seen "an unprecedented number" of challenges, referring to reports that either individuals or groups have asked for the removal of a book or other library resource to be remove from a school or public library and is then reported to the office.
"I have worked here for two decades, (I) started in the year 2000. I cannot recall a time when we saw this volume of challenges being reported to our office," she said.
While the office encourages library professionals, school librarians, public libraries and library workers to report to them, Caldwell-Stone said the office doesn't hear of every challenge that happens within the country.
Caldwell-Stone said a lot of the book censorship that takes place, particularly in schools, is silent censorship, with "an administrator making a decision on their own to remove a book from a library or classroom or the kind of activity that doesn't get reported either in local press or to our office."
The office did a rough tally of the number of challenges reported to their office over the three-month span of September to December 2021, amounting to 330 unique reports, often including multiple book titles. In contrast, in 2019聽鈥 which Caldwell-Stone said was the last year the office had statistics for a year where schools and libraries weren't closed for reasons related to the COVID-19 pandemic聽鈥 there were 356 challenges for that 12-month period.
Challenges ramped up as school board meetings began to be held in-person again, Caldwell-Stone said, with an effort by different groups to remove books and materials, mainly those with LGBTQIA themes and characters or dealing with racism and race, from libraries and schools.
She said she believes parents, individuals and advocacy organizations spurred by different groups have been coming to school board and library meetings nationwide demanding the censorship of books, "some of which they've never even read."聽
Caldwell-Stone said these situations have been particular stressful for librarians.
"It has created this false narrative around librarians, who are professionals who have spent years gaining the education and experience so that they can serve the students in their schools. They don't collect books arbitrarily and when they do, it's because they understand that there's an information need among the students," she said. "And we've heard from young people in high school that books like "All Boys Aren't Blue" serve a special role, particularly for young adults who are queer or transgender, as a way of understanding the experiences they're going through, as a way of understanding themselves and a way of affirming them as individuals, as human beings."
She said that the book is not "reading that people are being assigned or required to read, but it's a resource available to a diverse community of students."
Some of the framing around these books that deal with LGBTQ experiences is that "they're somehow pornographic or illegal, but they are not," she said.
"These are all books that are being published by mainstream publishers, being sold publicly in bookstores" Caldwell-Stone said. "They don't begin to meet the standards for illegal pornography or obscenity in any way."
That said, she noted the office believes it is important for policies to be put in place that allow people to raise concerns, saying "People have a right to petition the government." Caldwell-Stone said the office also recommends that schools have "opt-out" policies that allow parents to opt their children out of assignments or to request that the school library work with them on their child's access to certain materials.聽
"We respect the fact that a parent wants to guide their child's reading, and in fact, they have that right. But we also believe that parent's decisions about what books their student can access shouldn't dictate what every other student can access at (a) school library or what the community can access at the public library," she said.
Caldwell-Stone said young people have told the office that "All Boys Aren't Blue" has had "enormous value for them."
"The audience for the book is for not 5-year-olds, it's adolescents. To argue that adolescents are innocent about sex, about the fact that sex exists or that gender or sexual identity issues exist, I think is a little disingenuous, or that young adults might not want or need access to these kinds of stories for a multiplicity of reasons," she said. "Whether to understand another's experience, to understand issues related to the debate over civil liberties for gay people or the experiences of gay people or to simply find themselves reflected and their life experience reflected in the books at the library."
