Dissatisfied with two recent recommendations by the committee charged with reviewing challenges to school-library materials, the Anchorage School Board voted March 23 to become the appointing panel for the Controversial Issues Review Committee and to screen candidates' philosophical viewpoints.
The proposed policy change, which is not binding unless the board affirms the decision in a subsequent vote, came after the committee advised the board several weeks ago to apply the same criteria to the Bible that it had used to reconsider American Indian Myths and Legends. On December 11, the board had ordered the latter moved to a teachers' resource collection over a committee recommendation to retain it on middle- and high-school library shelves; the anthology was originally challenged by the parent of a high-school student because of the its sexually explicit fables.
"If you can't ban a book for whatever reason, then what good is your being on that committee?" area PTA president Ginger Jenkinson commented to the Anchorage Daily News March 24.
Posted March 30, 1998.