Since 1982, book lovers have been observing Banned Books
Week during the last week in September. Ironically,
the Highland Park Independent School District is participating in the
observance by banning several books on the high school English reading
list. You can find a list of these
books here. These are some great titles
by Nobel and Pulitzer-prize winning authors.
Sherman Alexie’s memoir won a National Book Award. But the books’ merits as literature are not
the only reason I think HPISD should reverse their decision and return the
books to the classrooms now.
They should be restored because in banning them, HP caved in
to a barrage of complaints by parents who noticed some racial slurs in the
dialogue and disturbing content like alcoholism. While parental involvement in
the schools is a good thing, trying to overturn the curriculum agreed upon by a committee of professional teachers through an email campaign is not the
way to do it.
The faculty knew some of these books were risky choices, but
they obviously thought high school students could handle the same topics in a
book that they confront in real life: alcoholic parents, racial prejudice, and
homosexual classmates and relatives, to name a few. HP isn’t really a Bubble where the kids are
never exposed to such topics, if not in the home then in music, TV, and film.
HP should restore the books and invite the objecting parents
to participate in a discussion with the faculty before deciding on next year’s reading list. That would be much more sensible than yanking
the books and then inviting a discussion about whether to revoke the ban.
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