The parent of a 5th-grader in the Cayce-West Columbia (S.C.) School District's Congaree Elementary School has won his battle to remove two books containing language he found objectionable from elementary-school library shelves.
Some 100 concerned people came to the Lexington District 2 school board's January 7 meeting, where trustees voted 5–2 to restrict Lois Lowry's Anastasia Krupnik and Amy Ehrlich's Where It Stops, Nobody Knows from students in 5th and lower grades. The dissenters favored restricting the titles from middle-schoolers too. “Maybe in Hollywood and on MTV, but not in the real world,” trustee Mac Toole argued in favor of the broader ban.
In October parent Gary Shull had complained about Lowry's use of a vulgarity for human waste, as well as the use of a slang term for sex and a blasphemy in Where It Stops.
Trustees also revised the district's selection policy to include “appropriateness of languge” and “appropriate diversification of viewpoints” in buying decisions, the Columbia State reported January 8.
Posted January 11, 1999.