CABARRUS COUNTY, N.C. — Cabarrus County education leaders are considering changes to the district's school library book policy after parents complained about the process of removing books that some people considered inappropriate.
The Cabarrus County Board of Education met Monday night to discuss potential changes, with parents speaking directly to the board about the current policy. Complaints of censorship poured in after parents learned several books were pulled from libraries with input from the superintendent and school board. A proposed policy provided by Jay White, the school board's attorney, would leave the review of books up to the board, giving it the power to pull books from libraries. The board would be required to announce publicly that any book is up for review before a vote.
"What we have seen in the past year is school districts around the country are confronting significant demands that they remove books that fall into a set of categories," Jonathan Freidman, the director of free expression and education programs with the nonprofit PEN America, said. "Books that have LGBTQ content, books that touch on race and racism, books that contain any kind of sex or sexual content whatsoever."
Parents on both sides of the argument spoke to the board during Monday's meeting. Some voiced their concerns about censorship, while others took the stance that schools should focus on teaching abstinence
"Politically motivated movements are encouraging the community to be wary of teachers and librarians, as well as to be wary of their discretion, judgment and expertise," one parent said.
"If there are parents who want to supply their child with sexually explicit material, they can, but without my help and my tax dollars," another parent said. "And they will answer to God."
One of the books in question is John Green's "Looking for Alaska." Two board members read a sexual scene from the book during a work session, claiming "Looking for Alaska" is "filthy" and should be banned.
Green responded to those claims on Twitter, saying he'd never seen anything like the "concerted effort" to have his book banned from school libraries across the country. Green wrote that the scene in question was taken out of context, saying it's meaningless without the full context of the novel.
"Regardless, the book isn't pornography," Green tweeted. "Like, if you find the book arousing, I ... really think you are reading it wrong."
Friedman supported Green's stance, saying the encounter in the novel isn't about encouraging sex.
"John Green's 'Looking for Alaska,' as he said, really presents a kind of awkward sexual encounter described in sterile, unemotional terms with the purpose of really trying to reflect in literature how such encounters are not always blissful and deeply emotional and how they carry other kinds of complications," he said. "You can look at that and say that's material that shouldn't be available to high school students whatsoever, but the truth is many young people at that age are engaged sexually and eager to read books that reflect the reality of their situation.
"To reduce that book by Green to just a few pages and not see its complexity and other benefits is to not understand the work as a contextual whole, and if we do that, what's going to be left of libraries where so many books contain so many topics that reflect the complexity of human nature and human experiences?"
It's unclear when Cabarrus County education leaders will make a decision on the proposed policy. The next scheduled business meeting is Monday, Oct. 10.
Flashpoint is a weekly in-depth look at politics in Charlotte, North Carolina, South Carolina, and beyond with host Ben Thompson. Listen to the podcast weekly.
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