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Weeks after parent Karen Williams succeeded in getting four gay-themed titles banned from Barron Area School District libraries, the school board is forming a 24-member ad hoc committee to examine whether the board should be involved in the collection-development process itself.
The October 19 decision came hard on the heels of Williams's subsequent complaint about the school-library availability of Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, A Way of Love, A Way of Life: A Young Person's Introduction to What It Means to Be Gay by Frances Hankel and John Cunningham, Jack by A. M. Homes, and Peter by Kate Walker. "One book bashes Christians, which I am," the October 20 Barron News-Shield quoted Williams as saying. "That discriminates against me."
ACLU of Wisconsin Executive Director Chris Ahmuty, who is monitoring the situation, told American Libraries that one official has suggested that board members could "count up the number of vulgar words in a book and rank them" as a selection tool.
Posted November 9, 1998.
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