Gates of Fire Remains Accessible
to Fairfax County Students
The board of the Fairfax County (Va.) Public Schools voted April 22 to retain Gates of Fire in the district’s high schools over the objections of a father who protested the book’s graphic language. “The book contains too much profanity, too much violence, and lurid depictions of sadistic behavior,” complainant Stan Barton explained in writing to the board. “I think we as a school board have a right and an obligation to set standards. And we have,” reacted board member Mychele B. Brickner.
A historical novel by Steven Pressfield, Gates of Fire recounts in sometimes grisly language the Persian defeat of the Spartans at Thermopylae in 480 B.C.
Barton is a member of Parents Against Bad Books in Schools (PABBIS), an organization that seeks more parental influence in the materials-selection process for the school district. Complaints by PABBIS founder Kathy Stohr in 2001 to Druids by Morgan Llywelyn and Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett resulted in the books being age-restricted. In reaction, local free-speech advocates formed the Right to Read Coalition. The school board has invited both groups to attend a May 5 town meeting called to explain the district’s selection process, according to the April 25 Washington Post.
Posted April 29, 2002.
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