Jonah Goldberg wrote an excellent piece highlighting the media’s abrupt characterization of this move as a “book ban.” Get a load of some of the headlines Goldberg cites about this:

Opponents of the removal deemed it a “book ban” and characterized the district’s decision as homophobic - and of course, the media ran with this idea.Īt Bob Graham Elementary, Amanda Gorman’s inaugural poem was moved from a shelf in a library media center for grade-schoolers and put on a shelf for middle-schoolers. The Central Bucks School District came under fire for removing the graphic novel “Gender Queer” from its school libraries due to parent concerns about the book depicting oral sex between two teenagers. What stands out about the Haverford case is that, under the new definition of “book ban” the media has created and weaponized, these discussions at Haverford should be held on par with cases like those in Central Bucks and the Bob Graham Education Center in Miami. Yet, you can count on the use of this sort of rhetoric within most articles you read about “book bans” in high school and middle schools nationwide. The public seems to be at a consensus about this - nobody is calling Haverford’s curriculum review a “book ban” or attributing malicious intentions to the students and activists seeking the book’s removal, and for good reason.

READ MORE - From the Editors: Support democracy in school board races - even when the other side wins But the notion that this is a “book ban” is nonsense - and the people who oppose the book’s inclusion in the curriculum are presumably well-intentioned.

Haverford township middle school