CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein took a guest spot at ICv2’s Talk Back, writing an article about the recent removal of Matthew Loux’s SideScrollers from a school’s summer reading list. The video game-themed graphic was removed from a Connecticut school district’s ninth grade summer reading list after a resident — one who was not a parent of a student affected by the reading list in question — complained of profanity and sexual references in the book.
In his article for ICv2, Brownstein breaks down how the removal of the book is an act of censorship, violates the school’s own policies, and interferes with the rights of other parents:
Fundamentally, what appears to have occurred is that one individual took away other parents’ freedom to choose whether or not the book was correct for their kids to read, despite the fact that the school’s own policies state: “no parent nor group of parents has the right to negate the use of education resources for students other than his/her own child.” One person’s preferences should not take away other parents’ ability to choose.
You can read the rest of Brownstein’s illuminating editorial here.
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Betsy Gomez is the Web Editor for CBLDF.