Content area
Full Text
Littleton, Colorado
Littleton English teachers vowed to seek reinstatement of a book by Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison that the Board of Education banned in August. The Bluest Eye was barred from the curriculum and library shelves after complaints about its explicit sex, including the rape of an eleven-year-old girl by her father.
Heritage High School English teacher Amanda Hurley agreed the work is "painful, difficult to read." But, Hurley said, the book emphasizes such values as empathy. "We have to discuss it, we have to learn from it," she said.
The school board listened to proponents of Morrison's book at a special meeting October 5. Earlier, students at Heritage and Arapahoe high schools held readings of the book in their school libraries.
Board President Mary McGlone said the panel does not intend to reconsider the August decision. But any member of the community can initiate the process of adding a book to the list of approved volumes, she said. That process could bring the issue back before the school board before the end of the school year.
Littleton High School English teacher Judy Vlasin said she would file an application on behalf of The Bluest Eye in coming weeks. She'll include material supporting the educational value of the book, she said.
"It's pretty shocking that any school board would ban a book by a Nobel Prize winner," said Vlasin, who has taught the book to junior and senior classes. "It's a huge step backward for the school district."
But Pam Cirbo, who has a child and foster child at Heritage High, said the descriptions in the book are too "horrific" for some high school students. "Do they need to know the explicit graphic-ness of a rape? I don't think so," Cirbo said. She said the book is appropriate for college students. "Certainly it's not trash," she said.
Under a previous policy, the book was approved for students in tenth grade and up. Complaints came in March from the parents of a Heritage High ninth-grader who chose the Morrison book from a list of optional reading. A study group that included parents, teachers and administrators recommended restricting the book to juniors and seniors. The board rejected that recommendation at the August meeting on a 3-2...