Lodi Unified School District’s controversial book review committee has been dissolved and will not meet again, Superintendent Neil Young announced in an email to district community members on Monday.
The review committee was convened in June to examine a series of formal complaints challenging the use of ten books in district libraries and classrooms, notably “Push” by Sapphire. The committee — which had only advisory powers — mistakenly took votes on the status of three titles, spurring accusations that Lodi Unified had banned books.
Young added in an interview that the complaints that came before the committee are now considered closed, and that parents could still choose to opt their children out of the books under the district’s new policy on materials containing “mature topics, graphic violence, vulgar language, and/or sexual content.”
Becky Harper, a district parent who served on the committee, said she was disappointed by the decision. Harper had filed formal complaints against half of the books, including “Push.”
“I thought that the committee worked really well together and discussed things in a way that was really thoughtful,” she said.
Meanwhile, a group of book advocates said during the public comment of Tuesday’s school board meeting that the end of the committee, in the words of one speaker, “merely kicks the can down the road.”
“It does not address ambiguities and inconsistencies between schools, librarians, principals and administration on the proper procedure for handling complaints,” Wende Berry said. “It most certainly does not address future book challenges, which we are certain to receive.”
However, formal challenges from parents and community members have not been the only source of controversy over books.
Renee Campbell, a librarian at Lodi High School, claimed that district staff had been directed to use BookLooks.org, a controversial website frequently used in book-banning efforts, to review her regular order of new books for the library. After submitting the order at the end of the year, Campbell noticed in February that some books were missing.
“I compared it with what I actually ordered, and I could see that anything that was adult level or was a YA novel that showed up on BookLooks.org was omitted from that order,” she said. According to Campbell, 35 of the 138 titles she ordered had not shown up, ranging from “I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter” by Erika Sanchez to John Milton’s “Paradise Lost.”
After community members spoke to Young at a “Coffee with the Superintendent,” Campbell said, “then suddenly the books were released.”
Young said it was not true that BookLooks.org had been used, and said it was standard procedure for the district to approve orders from a school site.
“When it was brought to my attention about concerns of a delay of instructional resources, I ensured that … basically any library book orders would be approved,” he added.
However, BookLooks.org was used as a resource during the review committee’s meeting to look at certain passages from “Push,” as well as “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson and “This is Kind of an Epic Love Story” by Kacen Callender, according to meeting documents obtained by Stocktonia.
Harper, who filed a formal complaint against “Push,” said “there needs to be a line somewhere” with some material. “Push” follows Precious, an illiterate African American girl living in Harlem who is sexually and physically abused by her parents.
“I think that there’s ways to depict hard situations in life without being sexually graphic about it,” Harper said, referencing “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, which has a rape scene. “I was emotionally engaged in the situation, but it wasn’t so detailed, graphic, even though that situation is still in the book … I would say that’s an appropriate way to depict something like that for a high schooler.”
Campbell said that despite the difficult content of “Push,” the book was still important to keep on shelves.
“From somebody who knows victims of incest and rape personally, it is such an important book that sheds light on that,” Campbell said, and referenced the fact that Precious learns to read and begins to overcome her challenges by the end of the book. “She brings herself out into the light, and brings her story out into the light, and is able to overcome her abuse and break free from her abusers.”
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This is nothing new. When I went to Lodi high back in 1971 JD Salinger‘s book the catcher in the rye was not in the school library for the reason that it had the word fuck in it. In my honors English class, my freshman year in college I was the only person in the class who had not read the book already.