Broken Arrow school board votes to keep acclaimed but assailed book
BY SUSAN HYLTON World Staff Writer
Thursday, May 10, 2012
BROKEN ARROW — A highly popular teen novel about a boy entering his freshman year in high school will remain on middle school library shelves, the Broken Arrow Board of Education ruled Thursday.
The board voted 3-0 to keep the book, “Carter Finally Gets It,” in middle school libraries. Each of the board members read the book. Two board members were not in attendance.
Theresa Sallee, parent of an eighth-grade son who attends Childers Middle School, asked the board to remove it, saying it is “vulgar, vulgar, vulgar.”
“I don’t do this lightly. I hate rocking the boat,” she said, adding that she could not in good conscience let the book go unchallenged.
She pointed out passages of the book that referred to a variety of subjects ranging from masturbation to the bullying of students with special needs. The main character, Carter, stays home from school and watches pornography all day. He also refers to girls as items on a menu and talks of selecting girls “like a lion selects its prey,” she said.
“His main goal is to get a girl to have sex with him. And that’s the clean version,” Sallee said. “One girl is called a village bike because every boy in Marion has had a ride on her.”
Sallee, who said her son is not a big reader, brought the book home and that when she examined it, “I almost fell over. This is not worth the paper it’s written on. When we call people gay and a retard and the sexualization of girls, it’s just not right.”
Assistant Superintendent Amy Fichtner outlined for the board the procedures and criteria they must consider before removing a book from the library, including books that are not required reading.
A school-level and district-wide committee had already ruled that the book should be retained, but the board of education had the final say.
“While the (school) committee does not support or promote the use of questionable language or all of the decisions made by the characters in the book, the committee did not find the book to be pervasively vulgar or completely lacking in suitability,” Fichtner said.
The district strives to select library books to provide a wide variety of diversity and appeal and different points of view, she said.
“It’s not the assumption on the part of the principal or librarian that every book meets the needs of every child,” Fichtner said.
“The parent is the ultimate authority for their own child,” she said. “Parent choice and guidance are the No. 1 way to filter or choose among those materials.”
She recommended that the board retain the book, noting that “the courts have found most — and I won’t say all — most removals of materials from media centers have been found to be contrary to the law and specifically a violation of the First Amendment.”
In a 1982 case, the Supreme Court ruled that a school board could not exercise its authority in a “narrowly partisan or political manner.”
“So, in other words, if your intent was to discriminate based on race, religion, politics, matters of opinion, then that would be an inappropriate use of your authority as a school board member,” Fichtner said. “Motivation is the key to your removal. If your intent is to deny students access to ideas with which the board disagrees and that becomes a decisive factor, then the removal is a violation of the Constitution of the United States of America.”
She added that “every parent has a choice what their children will read, and the school will partner with them … to the best of our ability.”
After the meeting, Sallee said she understood the board’s decision.
“I did this because of my personal beliefs, and I felt I was standing up for what I think is right. If I didn’t do it, it would always haunt me forever,” she said.
Superintendent Jarod Mendenhall called banning books from libraries a “slippery slope.”
“The First Amendment is there for a reason,” he said. “We live in a democracy. They don’t have to check the book out. It is a parental choice if they want to or not.
“I can understand where a parent would say, ‘You know, I don’t want my kid reading that.’ You know what? They shouldn’t let their kid read that. And that is totally OK. I applaud Mrs. Sallee,” Mendenhall said.
“Bottom line, this is their community and their kids. They have the right to stand up for what they believe in, because we’re in a democracy.”
Some of the most frequently challenged or banned books of all time include “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck, “A Farewell to Arms” by Ernest Hemingway and “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain, according to the American Library Association.
“Carter Finally Gets It” was recognized by the Young Adult Library Services Association as one of 2010’s Amazing Audiobooks.
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“Carter Finally Gets It” was recognized by the Young Adult Library Services Association as one of 2010’s Amazing Audiobooks.
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