The climate of fear and crisis in American society has increased pressures to restrict access to information in school library media centers. In times of unrest, a balanced collection of print and electronic resources presenting many points of view can help students understand the current issues and develop the information literacy skills needed to make decisions based on considered facts. Unfortunately, it can also attract the attention of critics. Having an up-to-date selection policy with reconsideration procedures can help address issues raised by concerned persons.
In the Green Bay Public Schools, the students’ right to read has not always been effectively protected when some of its building-level administrators fail to follow the American Library Association’s guidance on intellectual freedom in library media centers and classrooms. For example, in a middle school, a principal supported a study hall monitor taking one of the Gossip Girls series books away from a student. The student was passing it among her friends and pointing out passages from the book. The teacher supervising a study hall viewed the behavior as disruptive. She gave the book to the associate principal and pointing out some of the references to sex and alcohol use. The student had checked the book out of the public library. The associate principal asked the girl’s guidance counselor to give the book back to the girl after she let the student know that the book is not appropriate for middle school. The guidance counselor was instructed to call the girl’s parents and request that she not bring the book to school again because of the disruption it caused and its inappropriateness for middle school age students.
In another instance, in one of the district’s high schools, the principal provided parents challenging Jean Auel’s The Plains of Passage, the fourth novel in the her Earth's Children series, with suggestions on how to circumvent the district’s reconsideration policies and procedures in order to further their mutual conservative views. When the library media specialist and the district library media coordinator insisted that district’s reconsideration procedures be followed, the principal encouraged the complainant to ask her friend on the school board to have the board review the challenge immediately. The assistant superintendent of instruction intervened in order to remind the principal that all district employees must follow district policies and procedures. The principal convened a building level committee, listened to both the complainant’s presentation and to committee members’ discussion of favorable reviews of the book. Although the committee voted to retain the book in the collection, the principal substituted his own judgment. The principal’s written report conveyed his decision that the book was inappropriate for high school students and that it would be removed from his school’s collection. The principal followed the letter of reconsideration procedures, but not the spirit, of intellectual freedom safeguards.
Both of these cases highlight the need for a detailed selection policy that is understood by the entire community and supported by faculty and administration. The American Library Association stresses the need for a selection policy which includes procedures for the reconsideration of materials. The procedure for handling complaints should describe every step from the initial response to the complaint through the highest appeal. It is especially effective if district policy provides the reconsideration committee with a set of guiding principles and specific procedures to follow.
In addition to having Board of Education approved polices and procedures for requesting the removal of specific items from the library media center and/or classrooms, administrative adherence is crucial to protecting intellectual freedom and the students’ right to read . In the case of the “confiscated” Gossip Girls book, the student’s behavior should have been addressed separately from her right to read. The teacher and the principal properly addressed her disruptive behavior. However, banning student possession of a public library book, because a teacher and the principal consider it inappropriate, is less defensible. Parents have the right to determine reading matter for their own children; the student’s parents should have been consulted prior to the principal forbidding the student from bringing the book to school.
Preparing students for participation in a democratic society can be modeled by school library media specialists and other educators protecting intellectual freedom and the students’ right to read in their schools. For example, principals can stay neutral during the review process instead of expressing their personal opinion. On the other hand, they are not be bound by the reconsideration committee’s recommendation for retention or reassignment, so when principals seek to impose their own religious or political views, it becomes difficult to retain materials in the collection. However, in most cases in our district, building level adherence to the selection policy and reconsideration procedures has resulted in retention of challenged materials in library media center collections. Examples of the process of protecting access to resources include:
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Retention of the book, The Courage of Sarah Noble (Dalgliesh, Aladdin, 1991), in both the elementary library media center collection and for use with small guided reading groups to teach main character, comprehension, and how cultural sensitivity changes with time.
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Retention of the book, The Watsons Go to Birmingham –1963 (Curtis, Laurel Leaf, 2000), which was being used in a 5th grade classroom. The parent’s request to not assign it to her child was granted, and the student read an alternative title to fulfill the requirements of the classroom assignment. The parent’s request for the withdrawal of this book from all of the district’s library media centers was not granted.
The Green Bay School District selection policy with reconsideration procedures may be obtained by contacting the author.
Principles and Procedures to Guide the Work of a Reconsideration Committee
Examples of guiding principles
- Any resident or employee of the school district may raise objection to learning resources used in a school's educational program despite the fact that the individuals selecting such resources followed selection criteria and proper procedures.
- No parent has the right to determine reading, viewing or listening matter for students other than his/her own children.
- When learning resources are challenged, the principles of the freedom to read/listen/view must also be defended.
- Access to challenged material shall not be restricted during the reconsideration process.
- The major criterion for the final decision is the appropriateness of the material for its intended educational use.
- A decision to sustain a challenge shall not necessarily be interpreted as a judgment of irresponsibility on the part of the professionals involved in the original selection and/or use of the material.
Sample Procedure
- Examine the challenged resource;
- Determine professional acceptance by reading critical reviews of the resource;
- Weigh values and faults, and form opinions based on the material as a whole rather than on passages or sections taken out of context;
- Discuss the challenged resource in the context of the educational program;
- Discuss the challenged item with the complainant when appropriate;
- Prepare a written report detailing the rationale for a decision to retain the work, remove it from the collection, restrict its use, or move it to another level.
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