By John Schwing
WESTPORT — Controversy that ignited over the “Banned Books” display at Staples High School last year has flared up again in this year’s campaign for the Board of Education.
The smoldering embers of culture wars, waged locally and across the nation over what is appropriate reading material for school children, have been rekindled by a Monday exchange of emails between the campaigns of the rival Democratic and Republican school board candidates.
The issue arose after Democrats Lee Goldstein and Neil Phillips, incumbents seeking to retain their seats in the Nov. 7 municipal election, sent a campaign email Monday morning on the topic, “Who decides what books our children can access?”
The debate over books in the Staples library began last October when several people told the Board of Education they consider some of the books not only inappropriate for high school students, but too explicit, pornographic and promoting the sexualization of juveniles.
The school board referred a formal challenge, which sought the books removal from the library, to a rarely used review process conducted by a separate committee. After three hearings early last year, that panel unanimously rejected the challenge and recommended to Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice that the books remain in the Staples library collection.
The three books formally challenged — “Flamer” by Mike Curato, “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe and “This Book is Gay” by Juno Dawson — all have LGBTQ themes.
On Monday, the issue resurfaced when Republican school board candidates, Camilo Riano and Jamie Fitzgerald, sent an email response to the Democrats, proposing that the incumbents forward to the public images excerpted from the challenged books.
“In the interest of transparency, and to put the debate [over the challenged books] in proper context for the benefit of voters, we are asking that you send the attached images, taken from the challenged books, as a follow-up email to the same recipients,” the Republicans chided their rivals.
“If you believe these kinds of images are appropriate to show to the children of Westport, it logically follows that the residents of Westport should also see them,” the GOP team added.
The Democrats’ email, referencing complaints about the appropriateness of books featured in the Staples library’s “Banned Books” display — as listed by the American Library Association — said the school district “worked through the process for removing material, according to our policies and regulations.
“Ultimately, a 10-member faculty and community committee made a unanimous recommendation to the Superintendent to retain all three books in the Staples library and the challenger withdrew her appeal to the Board, the final arbiter,” they added.
“The challenged books are in every high school library in our area, and have won multiple awards,” the Democrats’ statement also noted.
Goldstein and Phillips concluded: “Every parent has the right to decide what’s best for their children, but no parent has the right to make those decisions for everyone else’s kids.”
Both camps, when contacted by the Westport Journal, were reluctant to elaborate on the issue.
“We have no further comment at this time,” Fitzgerald said on behalf of the Republicans in an emailed response.
“Our email speaks for itself,” the Democrats said. “Tearing pages out of context — and indeed out of thoughtful conversation — is meaningless.”
John Schwing, the Westport Journal consulting editor, has held senior editorial and writing posts at southwestern Connecticut media outlets for four decades. Learn more about us here.
Come on, if they won’t show the images publish them here! I need to know which pervert not to vote for.
Unfortunately the Democrats on our school
Board are hypocritical spineless washcloths who don’t even have the guts to have a proper conversation about anything they disagree with. And while they claim that parents have the right to choose what their kids read, they still support sexual material to be pushed on kids in school. (The book “This is gay” that shows how to hook up with stranger on Sex Apps has been used in 10. grade health class). Considering their lack of guts or desire to have a meaningful 2 way conversation, Lee even cut members of the BOE off in the meeting who don’t agree with her agenda. So, don’t expect them to forward any pictures.
What’s taking so long to post these book pictures? Specifically the ones regarding anal sex, oral sex and the adult child relationships. I want to see these for myself and can’t imagine why you would write this article without showing what the discussion is about? Are they that bad?
I guess you could go down to the library and check out the pics. The news is not obligated to publish every picture. If someone has open heart surgery, they dont show the pics necessarily. Or like a dog poop story… they dont publish… the kids might want to look at sex books… no book should be banned… maybe how make lsd, or anarchy… that should be banned. Nobody is obligated to read a sex book… maybe you want to check it out
Todd I applaud your free spirit and I totally agree no book should be banned. A friend just sent me another publication that actually just printed the pictures and I find them disturbing and inappropriate for a public school. To each their own but how could you suggest banning a book on lsd or anarchy if no book should be banned? I don’t condone passing out hate speech material, cocaine and a choice between play girl or playboy when kids walk through the front door of their school. There a time and a place but it’s not public school, same goes for the pictures of your poop that you brought up.
The only books i would ban, if i was emperor, would be subjects that could alter national securty, such as nuclear secrets, how to make mind altering drugs, sex is not a national security threat… i could see how kids might want to learn more about it. I of course know everything about sex, however when i was a teenager i was keen to experiment. Sex content is just a click away now, there has been an information revolution, porn mags arnt even printed. We are in the midst of a new sexual revolution. There are absurd aspects to todays sexualty, but who cares, conservatism belongs in finance and liberals in the bedroom… the question still stands…. why do you want the news to publish the pics? Its not what they do. But for the library to promote banned books is just a gimmick, so they can feel cutting edge, nobody is harmed by it. The kids might as well see it at school, learn about it and talk about it. It all makes so much sense, now that i am old
Simple, they are writing articles informing voters
,or trying to, and then not publishing the point of the article. The article is literally about the content they won’t show. And just because kids have access (or as you say at the click of a button) doesn’t justify it being handed out at public school. They have access to lsd but doesn’t sound like you want that in candy dishes at the public school library. Put all these books, all of them if you believe in freedom of speech, at the public library. The curious can check them out there. Plenty of whackos believe in hate material, so you think that should be on display too? Who are you to qualify what is a security threat? I don’t want that job.