a p o l o g i ze d t h a t t h e y w e re offered in the first place. Mikulas says they also checked t o s e e i f t h o s e t i t l e s w e re available at any other junior high school. “This was not just a blanket, ‘we’re removing books,’” says Tabitha Branum, the interim superintendent of RISD. “It was still allowing those books to be available where we believe that they were either age or developmentally appropriate.” Both titles were supplementary materials and chosen by the teacher. These are different from adopted materials, which are used as the main source of information in courses after a year-long review process, an opportunity for parents to preview and a presentation to the board of trustees. Some books that had been a p p ro v e d b y p a re n t s w e re removed right after the board meeting but were later re t u r n e d . B ra n u m says t h e District followed up with the p a re n t s , w h o c o n s e n t e d t o allowing their children to finish reading the books. “If the parent did give p e r m i s s i o n , w h o a re w e t o take those books out of their hands?” Mikulas says. RISD assembled a committee of educators and pare n t s t o b e g i n d eve l o p i n g a set of criteria that District e m p l oye es s h o u l d co n s i d e r when selecting supplemental materials. “What questions, what things are they thinking about to make sure that those re s o u rc e s a re a p p ro p r i a t e developmentally, in terms of maturity and really are tightly a l i g n e d t o t h e c u r r i c u l u m ,” Branum says. T h e c o m m i t t e e m e m b e rs
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aren’t creating a c h e c k l i s t ; i t ’s more of a lens for employees to look through, or guardrails to help guide the decisions. They also don’t want this process to b e co m e a way to edit out or remove diversity from materials available to students, Branum says. “We still want to have a breadth of books that reflect the diversity of o u r st u d e n t p o p u l a t i o n ,” B ra n u m says. “We still want st u d e n ts to h ave lots of choice. We want them to have books and characters that they can connect with and relate to.” R I S D wa n ts to m a ke s u re parents have confidence t h a t tea c h e rs h ave t h o u g h t critically about materials they p ro v i d e s t u d e n t s , B r a n u m says, and that the materials are going to be a “good choice” for their children. But parents still have “complete choice,” Mikulas says, and the District has seen that when students select their own texts, they read more.
If the parent did give permission, who are we to take those books out of their hands?
Why people might support book censorship arents in RISD and other places challenge books because of their content. Gender Queer: A Memoir was published in 2019 and received the ALA Alex Award and Stonewall Book Award-Israel
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Fishman Non-Fiction Award in 2020. But what some parents may have found problematic are its cartoon depictions of sexual situations, plus discussion about determining gender identity and sexuality. In an interview with NBC, author Maia Kobabe said the book wasn’t m ea n t fo r e l e m e n ta r y- a ge d children but was appropriate for high-schoolers. H o w e v e r, G e n d e r Q u e e r isn’t included in any of RISD’s campus libraries, according to an online search. The F-word appears in Burn Baby Burn 10 times, and the book references intercourse and drug use. Libraries at all fo u r of R I S D’s h i g h sc h o o l s have this book, but no other campuses do. A n o t h e r b o o k , Eve r y b o d y Sees The Ants, deals with suicide and bullying. The question, “If you were going
