Posted on Jun 6, 2022
Medford School District book removal amounts to ‘censorship’, says state library association
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In April, a graphic novel version of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian story The Handmaid’s Tale was pulled from the shelves of North Medford High School after a parent complained about images of nudity, sexual assault, and suicide.
JPR’s Erik Neumann spoke with Emily O’Neal, co-chair of the Oregon Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee about censorship and their investigation into the book’s removal.
Emily O’Neal: Unfortunately, we have not been able to get a lot of information from the Medford School District, which is, part of what is the concern. Typically, when a library – whether it’s a school library or a public library – experiences a challenge for materials, they have a policy that is well-posted and well-known on how they will look into the matter. Medford had a policy that was previously available and at some point over, we believe, the last school district that policy was taken down. So, we don’t actually know what process was gone through to remove the title.
JPR’s Erik Neumann spoke with Emily O’Neal, co-chair of the Oregon Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee about censorship and their investigation into the book’s removal.
Emily O’Neal: Unfortunately, we have not been able to get a lot of information from the Medford School District, which is, part of what is the concern. Typically, when a library – whether it’s a school library or a public library – experiences a challenge for materials, they have a policy that is well-posted and well-known on how they will look into the matter. Medford had a policy that was previously available and at some point over, we believe, the last school district that policy was taken down. So, we don’t actually know what process was gone through to remove the title.
Medford School District book removal amounts to ‘censorship’, says state library association
Posted from opb.org
Reading
1st Amendment
Freedom of Speech
Medford
Posted 2 y ago
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If the parents don't like the book, they don't have to check it out of the library. If they don't want their kids reading it, don't let them!! How many Muslims/atheists/Jews/Hindus/etc. are complaining about the Bible being in the library?
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."The ultimate area of concern is that it does seem like the material was removed due to the content. So it was a content-based restriction which, in library land, is censorship. That's the perfect definition of what we actively choose not to do, and believe it’s against the rights of Americans, [in order] to have access to materials. That's where the concern lies. We also have, just professionally, the notion that what is concerning to one is not necessarily what is concerning to all. And so, part of the concern, as well, is that we believe that this challenge request came from a single parent or maybe a small cohort of parents, but we believe it's a single parent, and that parent really should not ever be able to speak for all parents of the community."...
..."The ultimate area of concern is that it does seem like the material was removed due to the content. So it was a content-based restriction which, in library land, is censorship. That's the perfect definition of what we actively choose not to do, and believe it’s against the rights of Americans, [in order] to have access to materials. That's where the concern lies. We also have, just professionally, the notion that what is concerning to one is not necessarily what is concerning to all. And so, part of the concern, as well, is that we believe that this challenge request came from a single parent or maybe a small cohort of parents, but we believe it's a single parent, and that parent really should not ever be able to speak for all parents of the community."...
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