{"id":10376,"date":"2024-02-04T06:00:19","date_gmt":"2024-02-04T06:00:19","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"My-Turn-Censorship-by-Any-Other-Name-53864365\/","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/?p=10376","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Censorship by any\u00a0other name"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Amanda<\/a>
Amanda Darrow, director of youth, family and education programs at the Utah Pride Center, poses with books that have been the subject of complaints from parents in recent weeks in December 2021 in Salt Lake City.<\/figcaption><\/figure>

\n Thomas Newkirk is the author of \u201cLiteracy\u2019s Democratic Roots.\u201d He is also a member, and former chair, of the Oyster River Cooperative School District. The opinions expressed in this column are his own.\u201d <\/em>\n <\/p>\n

The \u201cAnti-Obscenity in Schools\u201d bill, proposed by the Republican House legislature (HB 1419) has much to say about the female breast. Among the litany of sexual material that might be considered \u201cobscene,\u201d the bill lists \u201cthe showing of the female breast with less than a fully opaque covering of any portion thereof below the top of the nipple.\u201d Thus the upper part of the breast cannot be obscene, it is the nipple that crosses the line, and it seems that the lower part of the breast also qualifies.<\/p>\n

There is also that thorny question about what \u201cfully opaque\u201d might mean, whether a swimsuit that doesn\u2019t fully obscure those troublesome nipples would qualify. The bill does make an exception for depictions of a mother breastfeeding a baby, even if a nipple is showing. But without the infant, we have potentially obscene nudity.<\/p>\n

Is this how our legislature should be spending its time? <\/p>\n

When we consider the challenges faced by the state, there are big ones. There are the inequitable, and now-judged unconstitutional, disparities in support for school districts. There is a looming teacher shortage with low-paying school districts often unable to hire certified teachers in areas like physics. So many administrators are leaving the profession \u2014 in part, because of intrusive bills like HB 1419 \u2014 that some searches have no candidates.<\/p>\n

But the bill has more serious and dangerous consequences than exposure to nipples.<\/p>\n

If past history is any predictor, challenges to books will not focus on the overall effects of the book, and will instead highlight certain passages or incidents that are deemed objectionable. Complaints are much more likely to resemble Education Commissioner Edelblut\u2019s recent, unprecedented involvement in book challenges in Dover, where he objected to the inclusion of two books, \u201cGender Queer\u201d (which wasn\u2019t in the school library) and \u201cBoy Toy\u201d (which was).<\/p>\n

In the exchanges of letters, it is fairly obvious that Commissioner Edelblut had not read the books, and was relying on selective quotes from online groups that monitor sexual or violent content. It\u2019s not even clear that he read the full comments in these online sources.<\/p>\n

If he had looked more closely at these websites, he might have seen \u201cGender Queer\u201d praised in Commonsense Media: \u201cAll important characters model strong, honest communication. Maia models perseverance.\u201d Family members and friends \u201care loving, supportive, good models for empathy.\u201d <\/p>\n

I predict that complaints under this law will look similar. And, given past history, they will focus on books about ethnic and gender identities outside the so-called norm. In the past decade Sherman Alexie\u2019s \u201cThe Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,\u201d an engaging well-written memoir, was the most challenged. Not by any measure obscene.<\/p>\n

This bill allows an appeal to the State Board of Education if a complainant is not satisfied with the local decision, even if that decision has followed established policy (which most school districts have). A complaint, vetted and denied by the local school district, can still go forward. This appeals process, as I read the law, is also clearly one-sided: excluding any involvement by parents who might object to the removal or restriction of a book at the district level.<\/p>\n

Whatever happened to local control? <\/p>\n

We vest considerable authority in local superintendents and boards. Superintendents can suspend students, hire and fire teachers, and commit to multi-million dollar contracts, without second-guessing from the State Board of Education. They can do this so long as they follow policy and the law. Why should a case dealing with a controversial book be so different? Why is the State Board of Education a better judge of community standards than local officials who are members of the community? <\/p>\n

These attempts to pull books from schools have a similar flaw: they misjudge adolescent readers, imagining them as fragile and in need of protection. These censors claim an interest in the mental health of these readers, and they claim that exposure to books like \u201cGender Queer\u201d will harm them.<\/p>\n

In fact, the opposite is true. The distress of growing up usually comes from feeling isolated, from believing that no one else has experienced what you are experiencing. You are alone on your island of sadness and weirdness. Books, especially the ones often censored, reflect the realities of violence, abuse, rejection, and isolation that some readers know only too well. But as ND Stevenson says in the introduction to \u201cGender Queer,\u201d \u201cSetting yourself in the world, knowing that you\u2019re not alone, that you could actually have a future as yourself \u2013 it\u2019s lifesaving.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thomas Newkirk is the author of \u201cLiteracy\u2019s Democratic Roots.\u201d He is also a member, and former chair, of the Oyster River Cooperative School District. The opinions expressed in this column are his own.\u201d The \u201cAnti-Obscenity in Schools\u201d bill, proposed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":591,"featured_media":10377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_newspack_byline_active":false,"_newspack_byline":"","newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,508],"tags":[263,505],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[633],"class_list":["post-10376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-top-headlines-cm","tag-opinion","tag-paywall","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/42844256-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/591"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10378,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10376\/revisions\/10378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10376"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=10376"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=10376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}