Scottsdale Parents Petition To Remove Sexually Explicit Books From School Libraries
By Staff Reporter |
Parents and community members within the Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) are petitioning for the removal of sexually explicit books from school libraries.
Last week, a coalition of parents’ rights and educational organizations submitted a letter to the SUSD governing board requesting the book removals. Nearly all of the books on their list were only offered at high school libraries, with the exception of one offered at a K-8 school library.
Parents and community members involved with Scottsdale Unites for Educational Integrity, Arizona Women of Action, Restore Parental Rights in Education, Protect Arizona Children Coalition, A Legal Process, Not In Our Schools, EZAZ, SaveCFSD.org, KIDS FIRST, Mom Army, and Moms for Liberty submitted the request. Two individuals also joined the request, Shiry Shapir and Dan Kleinman.
The parents submitted their request to remove all “pervasively vulgar” or “educationally unsuitable” content from SUSD libraries to the Scottsdale Unified Governing Board, citing Arizona laws on furnishing harmful items to minors and the 1982 Supreme Court ruling recognizing that school boards maintain the authority to remove books determined to be vulgar or unsuitable for education.
The groups argued that the books don’t offer “serious educational value,” or any “serious artistic, literary, political, or scientific value.”
The parents and community members also requested that the district employ a book maturity rating system, and to prohibit future purchases of books rated not for minors or aberrant.
“This request is not to ban books,” said the parents. “All of the books mentioned in this letter are widely available in bookstores and other online and brick-and-mortar retail outlets. Schools have a limited amount of library budget and shelf space, thus the question we must answer is which books should be offered to minors and which should not.”
Per the groups, SUSD hasn’t responded to their request.
The sexually explicit books that parents would like to see removed were “A Stolen Life” by Jaycee Dugard, “Doomed” by Chuck Palahniuk, “Haunted” by Chuck Palahniuk, “Lucky” by Alice Sebold, “PUSH” by Sapphire, “Sold” by Patrick McCormick, “Tricks” by Ellen Hopkins, “Perfect” by Ellen Hopkins, “People Kill People” by Ellen Hopkins, “Identical” by Ellen Hopkins, “Icebreaker” by Hannah Grace, “A Court of Frost and Starlight” by Sara J. Maas, “Anatomy of a Boyfriend” by Daria Snadowsky, “Anatomy of a Single Girl” by Daria Snadowsky, “Breathless” by Jennifer Niven, “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” by Jesse Andrews, “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison, and “Smoke” by Ellen Hopkins.
One or more of the books were located at all five high schools: Arcadia, Chaparral, Coronado, Desert Mountain, and Saguaro.
Desert Canyon K-8 school was also on the list for one book included: “Sold” by Patrick McCormick.
These books not only contain sexually explicit material, they contain aberrant depictions of sexual activities such as child molestation, rape, bestiality, sexual assault or battery, incest, adult and child prostitution, and sodomy. The books also contain descriptions of the usage of drugs and alcohol by both adults and minors, as well as suicide and self harm.
Arizona law prohibits the distribution of harmful items to minors, which includes that which contains descriptions or representations of nudity, sexual activity, sexual excitement, or sadomasochistic abuse.
Parents cited the Supreme Court case Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School No. 26 v. Pico to make their case that SUSD had full authority to remove the contested books immediately without review.
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