Residents voice opinions on student access to books
Posted on Friday, July 29, 2005
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/30579/
The content of certain books in Fayetteville Public School libraries continued to be an issue at the Fayetteville School Board meeting Thursday evening.
Local parent Laurie Taylor, who filed three formal complaints against specific books last year, recently released a list of 54 additional book titles she wants reviewed and restricted due to alleged sexually explicit content.
Taylor spoke again Thursday during the board’s "citizen participation" time. She suggested the books were vulgar and should be placed in a "restricted" shelf which would require parent permission for student access.
Taylor also suggested the inclusion of such books violated the school’s sexual harassment policy and their objectionable passages wouldn’t be allowed in student-produced publications at school.
Following Taylor, the board heard from about nine other people on the issue, with the vast majority of them speaking against regulating or removing any books from student access.
Ron Rockwell, holding copies of the books "It’s Perfectly Normal" and "It’s So Amazing," said he wished he’d had sex education books like those when he was raising his children.
Alluding to Taylor’s request to review so many books, Rockwell said the situation was getting out of hand. He said he was more fearful about the prospect of censorship than he was in a certain dire situation during Vietnam, because "you can’t fight irrational radicalism."
Another patron who spoke said she believed Taylor’s request was "unreasonable," saying the vast majority of the books on the list were in the high school library. She believed they wouldn’t be accessible to young children because school librarians only accept inter-library loan requests for age-appropriate materials.
One man spoke in support of Taylor and said he had no idea until recently what kind of vulgarities some modern books contain.
The board gave no response to the comments, staying silent during citizen participation time. Superintendent Bobby New said after the meeting he plans to discuss Taylor’s complaints with district librarians in August.