To the Editor:
Connecticut State Senator Bob Duff is introducing legislation to prevent “book banning” and “shield librarians from all the crazies who are out there suing because they’re not getting their way.” “Book banning” is a hollow term that fails to differentiate legitimate concerns about age appropriateness and suitability in a public school setting from partisan and ideological distaste. Moreover, removing a book from a public school library via a systemic process that involves all stakeholders, including parents, is not the same as an outright publishing ban. As is usually the case, specifics matter.
On its face, Proposed Bill 523 appears reasonable. Books should not be removed from school libraries solely because they are found to be “offensive”. There should be a formal process to “address concerns over certain items” and clear policies for book curation and library removal. Additionally, librarians who act in good faith should be protected from frivolous criminal and civil litigation. School librarians are seldom solely responsible for problematic material. They should not take the fall for school administrators or elected officials that dictate broader curricular and policy initiatives.
However, there need be some accountability mechanism and substantive challenge process when school library books violate parental and community consensus about what constitutes porography and sexualization of children. In Darien, which falls under Senator Duff’s 25th District, the following passages are accessible to students in school libraries:
- A cartoon of two minors performing oral sex on one another
- A pictorial account of a young boy, whose penis is exposed underneath a Batman t-shirt, urinating on another minor in bed
- Another cartoon, this one featuring a game during which a group of boys masturbate into a soda bottle while daring one another to drink the contents
- A conversation between two siblings during which they instruct one another on how to masturbate and “eat vagina slime”
- Detailed instructions about various masturbation and self-stimulation techniques
Why cartoons? Seemingly because “cartoons”, stricken from Darien’s digital safety policy here, are less likely to be deemed “pornographic” in a courtroom no matter how gratuitous or obscene the imagery. This type of content differs vastly from that contained in something like Catcher In The Rye, Huckleberry Finn, or other books that may have been “banned” because they offended certain people’s sensibilities. Books that sexualize children warrant special scrutiny.
In his X post, Senator Duff expresses concerns about “curtailing children’s ability to get an education” and references historical instances of “book burning”. It is highly dubious that the passages cited above possess indispensable learning value or that questioning the suitability of these books in a government-run school is akin to book burning. Throughout history, people presumably figured out how to masturbate without consulting their school library.
In reality, the presence of the aforementioned books in school libraries undermines faith in the educational system and trust in the highly-dedicated, well-intentioned professionals, including most teachers and librarians, who have nothing to do with the incorporation of this material. Most parents in Darien aren’t aware that this graphic, overly-sexualized content is available in schools because education officials do not explicitly address contested book passages. Instead, they respond to concerned parents with truisms about the importance of mental health and compassion as if group ejaculation scenes (into a soda bottle) are definitely empowering our youth.
While Proposed Bill 523 contains some laudable objectives in the abstract, any legislative discussion about a formal book challenge process that neglects to acknowledge the highly contentious material currently accessible in Darien school libraries reflects either complete naivety and ignorance or gaslighting.
Douglas Kechijian
Darien, CT