A Seattle area woman's concerns have led to the mid-February removal of One Teenager in Ten from the shelves of three Seattle School District high school libraries, and its replacement with its 1994 update, Two Teenagers in Twenty. But the decision isn't sitting well with the complainant, who maintains that both books, which contain collections of coming-out essays written by teenagers, promote pedophilia.
A review committee and newly installed School Superintendent Joseph Olchefske agreed on the substitution because Two Teenagers omits an essay from One Teenager that contains a lesbian teen's explicit account of her affair with a teacher. But Linda Jordan, who filed her objection in December, told the Seattle Times February 10 that the decision was inadequate because “if the school district objects to pedophilia, they would not have approved the second edition.”
Olchefske ordered One Teenager pulled temporarily February 3 after a KIRO radio host read excerpts on the air.
Posted February 15, 1999.