Eastside district curbs Nobel novel: Book unfair to blacks, Lake Washington chief says
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Toni Morrison's controversial novel "Song of Solomon" may stay in Lake Washington School District high schools, but only a select group of students likely will be able to read it.
Superintendent Karen Bates decided yesterday, after reading the book, that it probably won't be banned from the Kirkland-Redmond-area district but will be available only to juniors and seniors in Advanced Placement English classes.
The final decision rests with the School Board, which won't vote until October.
The debate stemmed from a decision by a committee of parents, teachers and two students that Morrison's book was not a fair representation of the African-American experience in the 1930s and therefore should not be placed on the district's teaching list.
Bates said she mainly was concerned with the complexity of the content and the mostly negative portrayal of an African-American family.
International School teacher Paul Plank - the second person to appeal a decision by the committee in 13 years - wants to teach the book to his 11th-grade honors English students next school year, but that won't be possible.
"I'm not happy that only a few students will have access to the book, but it's better than nothing," Plank said.
Honors classes are not part of the Advanced Placement program.
The 1977 novel, the story of a black man's search for himself, helped Morrison, an African American, win the 1993 Nobel Prize for literature. The book is included in many college classes and is on the Advanced Placement recommended-reading list, one of the reasons Bates said she approved it for AP English students.
"AP teachers are specially trained to teach a specific curriculum, so I felt this was the appropriate level," she said. "Generally, students who take AP classes are bright, there for the challenge, and can handle this complex book."
Bates and some on the Instructional Materials Committee (IMC) also were concerned about graphic language and sex scenes. The IMC reviews every book district students read as part of school.
After Plank appealed the IMC's decision, Bates assembled a group of three parents and three English teachers to read the book. Because of the discrepancy between the IMC and the second group, which approved the book, the procedure called for Bates to read the novel and decide before it goes to the School Board.
"With us in the suburbs and with limited exposure (to African Americans), does that become our view of what their lives were like then?" Bates said.
While school districts can choose to disapprove books, state law requires a policy that governs the process.
Barbara Dority, director of the Washington Coalition Against Censorship, said she believes "Song of Solomon" - commonly challenged in districts statewide - is appropriate for all juniors and seniors.
"There is very little, as far as I'm concerned, that human beings 17 and 18 years old, about to go out into the world, aren't entitled to read," she said.
Other frequently challenged books in schools are "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain, J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye," and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, according to the American Library Association.
Of nearly 6,000 challenges reported to the association from 1990 to 1999, the top four reasons were sexually explicit material, offensive language, inappropriate for age group, and "promoting Satanism."