A year after Spotswood (Va.) High School English teacher Jeff Newton posted ALA’s 1998 Banned Books Week list of most challenged materials on his classroom door, principal Jim Slye has ordered Newton to remove the list from public display. The order came after a parent complained about the pamphlet, titled “Read a Banned Book,” which Slye contended “was an endorsement of anything and everything on the list.”
According to the October 7 Harrisonburg Daily News-Record, Slye banned the list shortly after former school-board member Mary Jane Michael asked the teacher about the pamphlet. In a written statement to the press, Michael said she is concerned that “a teacher or person in a position of authority is giving minor children access to pornographic literature.”
Slye told the paper he took particular exception to the school’s “promoting” The Joy of Gay Sex, Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies, and Understanding Sexual Identity: A Book for Gay Teens.
Posted October 18, 1999.