Ryan Walters claims 'Glass Castle,' 'Kite Runner' contain porn. What do experts say?

This week, Oklahoma state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters launched a feud between the state education department and a school district when he claimed two books in the school's libraries contained pornographic scenes and should be removed.

The Oklahoma State Department of Education threatened to lower Edmond Public Schools accreditation if it did not remove the two books, “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls and “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, from the libraries of the district’s three high schools. The district volleyed back with a lawsuit arguing that the locally elected school board should be the ones deciding library content.

But do the award-winning books really contain pornographic scenes? Here's what experts have to say.

Ryan Walters, Edmond Public Schools disagreement over library books

According to a letter received by Edmond Public Schools, the Education Department's Library Media Advisory Committee believe the books contain sexualized content and questioned whether either had any educational value.

On Tuesday, Edmond Public Schools filed a lawsuit against Walters, the state Board of Education, and the state Education Department. The lawsuit asks the Oklahoma Supreme Court to decide whether the Oklahoma State Board of Education or a local elected school board has the authority to establish policies concerning books in the district’s libraries.

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, said the decision about whether a student reads a book or not is to be made between the student and the student's parent.

"The (Edmond) school district has concluded that the two books in question have value for student readers who want to read them," Caldwell-Stone said. "Reviews and evaluations by literary and educational professionals support that conclusion ... State officials seeking to suppress literature based on their personal values  should not be in the business of telling students and parents what they can read in the library."

What part of 'Kite Runner' is being challenged?

Issues the committee had with "The Kite Runner," a fiction novel about a young boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Afghanistan's capital city Kabul, include the "explicit, graphic sexual language in describing the violent same-sex rape of a 12-year-old boy by a group of boys" which could "deliver secondhand trauma to the reader."

"The Kite Runner" was the 11th most challenged book between 2010 and 2019, according to a list compiled by the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. Reasons included homosexuality, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit also sexual violence and was thought to “lead to terrorism” and “promote Islam," ALA spokesperson Raymond Garcia said.

What part of 'The Glass Castle' is being challenged?

On "The Glass Castle," a memoir by Jeanette Walls, the committee said the "sexual content is explicit and prevalent throughout," including: "a child going into a whorehouse, an uncle masturbating while touching a child's leg, a grandmother molesting a young boy, a child showing another child his father's penis, and rape."

"The Glass Castle" was No. 9 on the American Library Association's Top 10 challenged books in 2012, for the reasons of "offensive language" and for being "sexually explicit," Garcia said.

What are Oklahoma's rules on sexualized content?

According to rules approved by the state Department of Education in 2023, public school libraries cannot have available to minor students books with sexualized content or pornographic materials. A school found to be in willful noncompliance could have its accreditation status altered.

"Sexualized content," the rules state, is "material that is not strictly Pornographic but otherwise contains excessive sexual material in light of the educational value of the material and in light of the youngest age of students with access to said material."

While the letter said the books met the criteria for sexualized content, Walters has referred to them as pornographic in nature and criticized the district for choosing to "peddle porn."

According to the Department of Education's rules, books qualifying as pornographic include:

• depictions or descriptions of sexual conduct that are patently offensive as found by the average person applying contemporary community standards, considering the youngest age of students with access to the material

• materials that, taken as a whole, have as the dominant theme an appeal to prurient interest in sex as found by the average person applying contemporary community standards

• a reasonable person would find the material or performance taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, educational, political, or scientific purposes or value, considering the youngest age of students with access to the material

What's next for Edmond's school library?

The school's accreditation will remain as-is for now. The day after being sued by the Edmond Public Schools district, the Oklahoma State Board of Education declined to put an action item about the district accreditation on its agenda for its regularly scheduled February meeting.

As for the lawsuit, the court agreed to weigh in on the case late Wednesday afternoon and set a hearing before a court referee on March 5.

Students should have the freedom to see themselves, their experiences, as well as the experiences of others reflected in the books of a school library, Caldwell-Stone said.

"Books have the power to change and save lives," Caldwell-Stone said. "They can foster difficult conversations on race, social justice, and sexual identity and prevent self-harm and suicide by demonstrating to students who are struggling with very adult challenges that they are not alone and that they too can overcome their struggles."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Ryan Walters says library books contain porn. What do experts say?