WHEN BANS ARE SOUGHT: What rules do local schools apply when books are challenged

Nov. 27—TRAVERSE CITY — On the first of November, the Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union wrote a letter to Michigan's K-12 superintendents and school board presidents expressing concern over recent efforts to ban books in public schools.

In that letter, the ACLU urged public school leaders to affirm their commitment to the First Amendment and their students by "resisting and speaking out against these harmful and misguided efforts" and restoring any materials that have previously been banned.

The letter points to Supreme Court cases that illustrate how book banning infringes on students' rights.

Michigan communities have made national news for their decisions and discussions around reading materials, especially as it pertains to books about sexuality and the LGBTQ community.

A large number of parents in Dearborn attended school board meetings to voice their support for and against bans regarding books about the LGBTQ experience. Dearborn Public Schools officials reviewed multiple titles, and removed two books from its school libraries thus far.

Meanwhile, Jamestown Township, near Grand Rapids, voted again last Tuesday to defund the library because of its collection of books by, for and about the LGBTQ community.

However, at least for now, it appears that book challenges and book bans remain uncommon at a vast majority of school districts across the state. According to PEN America, four Michigan school districts — Gladwin Community Schools, Hudsonville Public Schools, Novi Community School District and Rochester Community Schools District — collectively made 41 book bans between July 2021 and June 2022.

Michigan is not alone. Reporting across multiple states by CNHI reporters show that, since 2020 and amid the COVID-19 pandemic, efforts to remove or restrict books accessible to children in schools and libraries have been on the rise.

According to the American Library Association, the number of challenged books has been growing in recent years. In 2020, the ALA documented 273 challenged books and, in 2021, the organization documented 1,597 challenged books. So far in 2022, 1,651 books have been challenged.

Books challenged in across the country include what some deem "offensive" or "inappropriate," many of them containing themes related to LGBTQ, race or sexuality.

But opponents of these kinds of book bans, like the ACLU, argue banning books infringes on children's rights to have access to information and limits inclusive education and conversations.

In Michigan, there is not a lot of legislation or guidance from the Michigan Department of Education on how to address parental or community complaints about library or instruction materials or about the selection process for school libraries, said Pat Corbett, the executive director at Neola, Inc. However, parents do have a right to inspect school materials under state law.

Neola, an organization that provides policy recommendations to boards of education in six states, has 430 clients in Michigan.

For the past two years, Neola has been writing and revising policy recommendations pertaining to challenges made to library or instructional materials for schools in Florida to keep up with the legislative changes being made in that state. Because of the changes in Florida, and states such as Ohio and Wisconsin, and an increased interest from community members to be involved in school operations nationwide, Corbett said he expects changes to soon come in Michigan as well.

But, for now, Neola has a flexible policy template into which schools can insert their own values and needs, Corbett said.

That template lays out guidelines for how the district should respond to requests, suggestions, complaints or grievances related to instructional materials, including a formal complaint process and the formation of a committee to evaluate the material on its appropriateness, accuracy, objectivity and use in the school. The committee then makes a recommendation on the material to the superintendent and the school board and, ultimately, the board of education is tasked with the final decision.

Neola suggests that the committee be made up of board members, school staff, the superintendent and "laypeople." Including people in the community in these discussions is important because they can add expertise or a new perspective that district employees may not have, Corbett said.

The Neola policy template also stipulates that materials should not be removed "solely because it presents ideas that may be unpopular or offensive to some."

Multiple schools in the region are Neola clients, including Bellaire Public Schools, Elk Rapids Schools, Frankfort-Elberta Area Schools, Glen Lake Community Schools, Kalkaska Public Schools, Leland Public School, Mancelona Public Schools, Northport Public School, Traverse City Area Public Schools and Suttons Bay Schools. Each has a variation on the Neola policy.

At Traverse City Area Public Schools, the book "Gender Queer: A Memoir", received a formal complaint, which has yet to be addressed by the board. According to the American Library Association, "Gender Queer," a graphic memoir by Maia Kobabe that depicts Kobabe's exploration of gender identity and sexuality, was the most challenged book of 2021.

There is currently one copy of "Gender Queer" at Traverse City Central High School, said Ginger Smith, TCAPS communications director.

Despite this complaint, challenges of materials at TCAPS remain uncommon. According to reporting by the Record-Eagle, the TCAPS board of education had to address one challenge in 2012 and two in 2014.

In TCAPS's version of the Neola policy, challenges to materials at a TCAPS media center calls for the superintendent or a designee, two parents, two teachers, a library media specialist and the building principal to meet to read the material, consider its contents and make a recommendation to the board about whether the reading material should remain in the schools or be banned.

Mina Cotner, a sophomore at Traverse City Central High School, said he thinks it's important for people to see reflections of themselves in the media and literature they consume in school. It's better for young people to have access to information about race, racism and sexuality through books, because many kids don't have a home environment where they can talk about such things, which often leads them to the internet.

"It's not just things being graphic, but things being very polarizing and sensationalized on the internet," Cotner said. "Of course, there will always be bias in literature and on the internet, but (on) the internet I feel it's much easier to find extremist information being promoted."

As a student, Cotner said, it's concerning and frightening to see book banning on the rise nationally. He feels it's reflective of the politically polarized environment in the U.S. He said he hopes it does not continue for long.

As for TCAPS, Cotner said he hopes that his school takes the complaints seriously and tries to get an understanding of where the complaint is coming from — and if it's based on a valid premise.

From his perspective, many of the complaints about library or instructional materials in schools come from people's personal beliefs about what is good or bad.

"When they come up with these complaints about these books, they try and make it into a fact — 'It is a fact that this is bad' — When this is a complex moral issue that needs to be, you know, thoroughly explored."

At Suttons Bay Public Schools, Superintendent Casey Petz said his school district has not received any formal complaints about materials in their media centers during his tenure, and they also have not heard parents or community members raise any informal concerns, either.

As for the nationwide trends related to book banning, Petz does not think of it as reflective of a particular interest in book banning, but more as a result of a greater movement among parents who feel that school districts have overstepped, and that they want to be more involved in what the schools are doing.

In some cases, parents were upset with the decisions being made by school leaders, and those decisions may have broken the trust between schools and parents, he said.

"Rooted in that are a whole bunch of issues where maybe parents before could just say, 'Hey, we trust the school and we're gonna continue to support what they're trying to do,' " Petz said. "Now, they're asking more questions."

At Elk Rapids Public Schools, Superintendent Julie Brown said she also has not seen any challenges, formal or informal, at her district to course or library materials. However, she has heard, in passing, that parents want their kids to have access to different cultures through course or library materials at school.

She also hears informally that parents of all backgrounds and beliefs don't want their kids to receive lessons that are inundated with personal biases.

Brown said she welcomes parent interest in what's being taught in the schools, because it makes for a good opportunity to educate.

While book bans remain uncommon, the fact that they're on the rise nationally is something that all school officials need to be aware of, Brown said. The process of addressing concerns is important to follow, because that's how district employees can avoid inserting their own biases in lessons or curriculum and address parent concerns appropriately.

"If there is a concern about what's being taught in a school, we should welcome that opportunity to follow the process and challenge and ask questions — and you know both sides have become more educated," Brown said.