Times Editorial : A formal complaint
Posted on Friday, August 12, 2005
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Fayetteville School Library Book debate
Fayetteville resident Laurie Taylor has made a proposal to place certain Fayetteville Public School library books she considers to be inappropriate for students on a restricted access shelf. Fayetteville School District patrons received a chance to voice their opinions on whether to restrict student access to certain school library books at a special town hall meeting. The Fayetteville School board eventually decided by a narrow margin not to restrict access to certain books. The stories below cover the issue from its beginings through the decision by the school board and the aftermath.
- School board spends much of 2005 debating books (01-01-2006)
- Taylor becomes public figure with war against books (01-01-2006)
- Times Editorial : A good sign (10-06-2005)
- Taylor joins UA debate team for discussion of library books (10-06-2005)
- School committee says ‘crude’ book to stay in FHS library (10-05-2005)
- UA debate team addressing school’s recent book issue (10-05-2005)
- Books wonít be restricted (09-16-2005)
- Times Editorial : Back to the books II (09-15-2005)
- The great book debate (09-14-2005)
- Times Editorial : Back to the books (09-13-2005)
A war of words.
That's Laurie Taylor's legacy ever since she became a known quantity in this community. At first, her efforts to classify books as "restricted"use targeted a handful of instructional texts that have little business falling into the hands of children. Emboldened by her victory at having three books reclassified to require parental consent, this concerned parent widened her attack plan. She created (and apparently continues to create) a list of books she wants removed from easy availability in the public school libraries in Fayetteville. Taylor's decision to debate the propriety of fictional works quickly throttled this debate to surprising heights, with folks lining up in both camps. The debate has left us torn. We've said before that Taylor's crusade is too sweeping, weakened by her efforts to include any and all books that she finds offensive in some way. That's what has sparked cries of censorship, the feeling that one parent is seeking and may gain enough power to get books removed from libraries' general circulation.
Taylor's downfall is that she's casting her net too wide. The problem of those crying censorship is that they would rather argue the principle than deal with any of the specific assertions, largely because some of the passages cited as inappropriate are, well, inappropriate for young people. They're simply hard to defend. If the argument is about whether we should use good judgment in selecting books for our public school libraries and whether there's a possibility that some poor judgments have been made, well, then we'd say yes and yes.
This huge debate will boil down eventually to one of process. According to district policy, once a complaint is filed - and this could potentially be the first of scores to be filed - a "materials evaluation committee"reviews the work and submits a recommendation. Taylor wants to go further, asking local school board members to "audit"the library system, appoint a parent-led committee to review the addition of future materials, and deposit questionable materials into a restricted access section. Naturally, though, it remains much too early to guess what exactly the school district will do.
It takes time, energy and money to go through a laborious review of a challenged book. The Fayetteville School Board will have to figure out how to deal with such a huge volume of challenges, and that process will determine in large part which side school board members want to come down upon. The scenario doesn't portend a pleasant outcome, because the professional librarians who select the books believe they have the students' best interests at heart, and the parents enrolled in Taylor's crusade believe they have children's best interests at heart.
It's ironic, really, that both sides in this debate recognize that decisions must be made about which books are available. Limited funding dictates it, and everyone agrees that not every book is suitable in every library. This is a fight over who decides where to draw the line.
Reporting and editorializing on this issue is difficult, in large part because much of the material at issue would never be published in a newspaper of general circulation such as the Northwest Arkansas Times, specifically because it would be considered by many, many readers as obscene or vulgar. That makes it hard to get a true idea of the materials being questioned. For our part, we must be satisfied - without repeating all the gory details - with noting that some material Taylor points to is disturbing enough to raise the question of why a librarian chose to use her limited resources to purchase it. Taylor's first challenge, a book called "Push,"really isn't the best ground on which Taylor's opponents want to take a principled stand, but it's also clear that many of Taylor's other targets are books of far more value in their totality than a simple excerpt might suggest.
In Taylor's march to cleanse local schoolhouse shelves of material she finds questionable, were every request Taylor has made adhered to, Fayetteville students would find themselves bereft of Pulitzer Prize- and Nobel Prize-winning authors. That's not a solution.
Perhaps now we know why nobody but the incumbents wanted to run for Fayetteville School Board this year.
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