https://www.berkshireeagle.com/news/southern_berkshires/great-barrington-gender-queer-book-police-ban-classroom-du-bois-middle-school-aclu-rights/article_14ba4abc-9eb9-11ee-83c9-0b3ff1c1b9dd.html

Is the point we are at now, the anti-LGBTQIA haters can’t get the books they hate out of schools or public libraries, so they call the police and lie that porn is being shown to kids?  These groups did a sneak attack and got into positions to act on their racism and their bigotry.  But now people understand who they really are and the public is fighting back.  The majority doesn’t believe what the haters do, just as the majority of the public doesn’t agree with the maga republicans and what they are claiming and want to do.  Just as the maga republicans keep claiming that they speak for the country, they represent what the people want, which is clearly not true, it is the same with the haters.  They also claim to represent the people, the public, the parents, everyone!  Yet their ideas and what they want are very unpopular, so clearly they don’t speak for the majority, do they?    This is like calling in bomb threats to stop drag shows.  Just because you don’t like something doesn’t give you the right to deny it to everyone else.  Hugs.  Scottie

The ACLU is concerned about a police officer’s having searched a classroom at W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School for the coming of age novel, “Gender Queer” after receiving a complaint. The incident has prompted outrage in the school community.

AP FILE PHOTO

GREAT BARRINGTON — The plainclothed police officer who entered an eighth grade classroom to search for a book wore a body camera and recorded the incident, leading to more legal questions and concerns. 

The American Civil Liberties Union and other free speech advocates say they are alarmed by the recording, as well as the entire Dec. 8 incident that took place after classes let out at W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School.

 

They also say they cannot recall any instances of police going to a school to search for a book. Schools and libraries have internal procedures for book challenges. 

“That’s partly what is so concerning,” said Ruth A. Bourquin, senior and managing attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts. “Police going into schools and searching for books is the sort of thing you hear about in communist China and Russia. What are we doing?”

The Berkshire Hills Regional School Committee and Superintendent Peter Dillion have, in a statement sent to the school community Tuesday, apologized for how it handled the situation, stating “clearly and unequivocally” that it does not support book banning, and committed to making all of its students feel safe.  

“The recent incident at the middle school has challenged and impacted our community,” according to the statement. “Faced with an unprecedented police investigation of what should be a purely educational issue, we tried our best to serve the interests of students, families, teachers, and staff. In hindsight, we would have approached that moment differently. We are sorry. We can do better to refine and support our existing policies. We are committed to supporting all our students, particularly vulnerable populations.”

 Someone complained about a book in a Great Barrington classroom. Then the police showed up

The ACLU has requested that body camera footage and other records related to the complaint and the investigation, Bourquin said.

It was an anonymous complaint that led Great Barrington Police to open a probe about whether parts of the book, “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe, could be considered obscene material or pornographic.

Police then notified the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office as per the department’s policy.

They also notified school and district administrators they were coming to the classroom, and the officer was escorted there by the school principal. The teacher, who kept the book in her resource library, was surprised to see the officer. The officer announced he was turning on his body camera and then looked for the book and did not find it.

The DA ordered the investigation closed. The matter of whether the book is appropriate now rests with the schools.

In its letter, the BHRSD School Committee said the incident “has challenged and impacted our community.”

“Faced with an unprecedented police investigation of what should be a purely educational issue, we tried our best to serve the interests of students, families, teachers and staff. In hindsight, we would have approached that moment differently. We are sorry,” the letter said.

The committee said it would work to collect feedback on how it can do better, starting by hosting a community meeting on Jan. 11. 

“It is the obligation of the district to use its policies, existing or amended, to select curriculum. In this case, the content was not the issue. The process challenging it was. We want to ensure that students and staff feel safe and supported and that families’ voices are heard.”

But questions remain, and the ACLU, parents, students and others remain shocked by the police involvement. Gov. Maura Healey also expressed disapproval of the incident and of book banning in general.

SOUTH BERKSHIRES

Students, staff and Gov. Maura Healey express grief, disapproval after police searched a Great Barrington classroom for ‘Gender Queer’ book

•  3 min to read

 

Kobabe’s award-winning illustrated novel is frequently the target of bans. It was the No. 1 one most banned book last year, according to American Library Association data.

‘The freedom to read’

 

“Gender Queer” is a coming-of-age memoir about reckoning with confusion about gender and contains sexually explicit illustrations and language.

It is this that many in LGBTQIA+ community say they believe is the reason for the censorship — not so-called “obscenity” concerns.

In Massachusetts the test for obscenity is if the material is of interest sexually, depicts or describes sexual conduct “in a way that is patently offensive to an average citizen of this county,” and “has no serious value of a literary, artistic, political or scientific kind,” according to the state.

It was a complaint about so-called obscene materials in the classroom that police say led them there — something they said they had a duty to investigate.

But the ACLU’s Bourquin disagrees.

“We’re very troubled by this notion,” she said. “They say anytime someone could call they have an obligation to go marching into places wearing a body cam, and you know, interrogating people,” Bourquin said.

State laws, she said, are “pretty clear about police not having roles in this situation.”

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Both the state and federal constitutions also protect the rights of students to receive information, she added, noting the ACLU and GLAD — Legal Advocates & Defenders for the LGBTQ Community — sent an open letter in January to school superintendents statewide given the rise in attempts to ban school library books.

The letter, also sent to the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, noted that legally such bans “may constitute unlawful discrimination.”

The letter says the courts “have recognized that the fact that some parents do not want their children to read certain books cannot justify depriving other students of their rights of access.”

The ACLU’s letter serves as a legal guide for schools and students’ rights to have access to information that is “free of censorship,” and says the ACLU stands “ready as a resource in this fight.”

The librarian at Du Bois middle school, Jennifer Guerin, made another point about that access. She said that it is “critically important for concerned community members to remember that the current situation is not about forcing a book into students’ hands.”

“It’s about the freedom to read,” Guerin said. “It’s about providing voluntary access to a well-written, highly acclaimed resource in a safe place for a teenager who might want or need it.”

Using obscenity as an excuse to censor books with literary value is a heavy legal lift, said Bourquin. Obscenity laws have been “carefully crafted to ensure not tromping on constitutional free speech rights.”

If a book has value and isn’t meant to sexually arouse it will be hard for it to fail the legal test for obscenity, she said. 

That test is “very specific,” and not something the average person or police officer necessarily would know, said Justin Silverman, executive director of the New England First Amendment Coalition.

“It’s not a very easy test,” Silverman said. “And just because you have a community member pointing to something and saying, ‘That’s obscene,’ well, that doesn’t mean that it is obscene under the First Amendment.”

Like Bourquin, Silverman is stunned by the police involvement and thinks it wise to set a precedent for the future given the uptick in school book challenges.

“While it might be rare now, it doesn’t mean that it will be rare in the future,” Silverman said of police involvement in school literature. “I think the school and the police department have to come forth with a policy to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”

 

 

Heather Bellow can be reached at hbellow@berkshireeagle.com or 413-329-6871.