Lex Luthor: A Librarian's Superhero

I just re-watched Superman: The Movie (1978) and something new stood out for me. I do not claim to be an expert when it comes to comic books or comic book characters, in fact all I really know about Superman comes from the 1978 film. What stood out is Lex Luther's ability to find information to support his evil plans. He is a librarian's superhero. His office is full of books and he knows how to use them. I guess you could say his super power is collocation.

Book Banning in Seattle

I have been studying intellectual freedom for the last couple of months at the University of Hawaii. One of our textbooks for the class is 120 Banned Books. You can probably guess from the title what this book is about. Just last week we were discussing cultural reasons why books were banned or challenged. The very next morning I read in the Seattle Times that the book Brave New World was being challenged at Nathan Hale High School in the Seattle School District.

I believe in and advocate for an open and free marketplace of ideas. Does this mean that the topic of book banning should be off the table and that every books is free to sit on the shelf of any library? I am still struggling with that questions and its implications for children's libraries. However, for High School and public libraries, there is not a book I would challenge nor a resource I would ban.

I must say though, that this particular book challenge is an interesting position. First, I should note that the person who is challenging the book is the mother of an upset student who read the book last year. I am curious why is has taken the challenge so long to get to the school board. My hope is that it is because the mother took the time to read the book. A reoccurring theme of book challenges are conservative parents who have never taken the time to read the books which ultimately results in challenges in order to push a particular moral slant.

Another interesting point, this particular challenge seems to be less about the content of the book and more about the ability of High School students to grasp the larger meaning of the story. This could be stating another way, the teacher's inability to fully engage the students. I do not know the teacher nor do I intend to pass blame into the hands of an educator. This is a major issue within the Seattle school board concerning the appropriate response concerning situations like this. Instead of improving a teachers ability to teach a subject the subject is taken away all together. This is problematic. The solution to the challenge should be paid professional development on how to engage students when teaching controversial books. I realize my argument here is way too simplistic as it does not take into account the complexity of student/teacher relationships and the individual responsibility of the students. The point here is that the removal of the book from the classroom does not need to be the solution and it doesn't seem to address the problem.

Finally, I found the motivation for the banning to be particularly intriguing. Typically when Brave New World is being challenged it is because of sexual explicitness. However, in this particular case it was because the parent believes that Native Americans are inappropriately represented in the novel. Compare this reason to a challenge of the exact same book earlier this month in Maryland because of sexual vulgarity. While I do not approve either reason for banning the book, I do sympathize with the mother from Seattle. Especially because Native Americans are probably the most under-represented group in American.

At the point when I write this the only decision that has been made is to remove the book from the reading list at Nathan Hale High School. As far as I know this means the book will still be available in the library. The challenger has stated that she would like to have the book removed from all reading lists in the entire district. To those who champion reading and intellectual freedom, I do not expect this book will get removed from the libraries. There will probably not be a formal banning of the book. I encourage everyone to write an e-mail to the School Board if you are not happy with their decisions or to go to a library and talk to a librarian about what you can do to support the freedom to read. This will be an important issue for us all to keep an eye on as the outcome has the potential to set precedent for future challenges.

Links:

The NPR article on the issue

The American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom

ALA Bill of Rights