19 Fulton Street, Suite 407

New York, NY 10038

Joan E. Bertin
Executive Director

tel: (212) 807-6222

fax: (212) 807-6245
email: ncac@ncac.org
web: www.ncac.org

NCAC PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS
Actors Equity Association
American Association of
School Administrators
American Association of
University Professors
American Association of
University Women

BY ELECTRONIC MAIL

American Booksellers
for Free Expression
American Civil Liberties Union

To: Dr. Jamelle S. Wilson, Superintendent

Members of the Board of Education
Hanover County Schools
200 Berkley Street
Ashland, VA 23005
January 12, 2015
Dear Superintendent Wilson and Members of the Board:

American Ethical Union

American Federation of Teachers
American Jewish Committee
American Library Association
American Literary Translators
Association
American Orthopsychiatric Association
American Society of Journalists
& Authors
Americans United for Separation of
Church & State
Association of American Publishers
Authors Guild
Catholics for Choice

As organizations concerned with the application of First Amendment law and

principles in public institutions, we followed the controversies surrounding Thomas
L. Friedman Reporting: Searching for the Roots of 9/11 in the districts classrooms last
month. Although we are gratified that the review committee unanimously supported
use of the film on educational grounds, we are concerned with the districts response
to that controversy, specifically proposed amendments to current board policies. If
adopted, the proposals would compromise important educational and constitutional
principles and in all likelihood have the practical effect of inviting more challenges
rather than reducing them. We have three major concerns: rating and labeling of
sensitive content, the prescriptive use of ratings developed by a private entity for
films used in school, and the parental opt-out provision. Each is addressed below.
Policy 6-1.10 refers to Teaching about sensitive or controversial topics. Similarly,
regulations accompanying Policy 6-5.6, relating to supplementary materials, require
pre-clearance for any material that raises a reasonable concern relating to its
appropriateness. The regulations provide no definition of, or criteria for,
determining what are sensitive topics or what is appropriate, leaving teachers to
guess or base decisions on their own views. This invites subjective decision-making
that will inevitably result in inconsistent application of the policy and the labeling of
valuable educational material that will, in turn, be avoided by parents and teachers.
The question of what is sensitive or appropriate is a highly subjective and wideranging one, implicating a number of materials that address race, gender, religion,
sex, violence, history, science, politics, the environment, or any other issue on which
people disagree. There could be (and have been) objections to Nickel and Dimed, by
Barbara Ehrenreich, because of its depiction of poverty; to Native Son by Richard
Wright for its depiction of ghetto life; to A Day No Pigs Will Die by Robert Newton
Peck because of its descriptions of farm life; to The Diary of A Young Girl by Anne
Frank because it is a real downer; to a Shel Silverstein poem in A Light in the Attic
because it encourages children to break dishes so they wont have to dry them. Such
objections rarely, if ever, consider the literary or educational value of the work at
hand, which should be the only legitimate concern of public school officials.

Childrens Literature Association

College Art Association
Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
The Creative Coalition
Directors Guild of America
Dramatists Guild of America
Dramatists Legal Defense Fund
Educational Book & Media Association
First Amendment Lawyers Association
International Reading Association
Lambda Legal
Modern Language Association
National Center for Science Education
National Communication Association
National Council for the Social Studies
National Council of Churches
National Council of Jewish Women
National Council of Teachers of English
National Education Association
National Youth Rights Association
The Newspaper Guild/CWA
PEN American Center
People For the American Way
Planned Parenthood Federation
of America
Project Censored
SAG-AFTRA
Sexuality Information & Education
Council of the U.S.
Society of Childrens Book Writers
& Illustrators
Student Press Law Center
Union for Reform Judaism
Union of Democratic Intellectuals
Unitarian Universalist Association
United Church of Christ
Office of Communication
United Methodist Church
United Methodist Communications
Womens American ORT
Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance
Writers Guild of America, East
Writers Guild of America, West

Indeed, your own experience of dealing with challenges in the district indicates how vague and
unpredictable such objections can be. Challenged in your district in the past, The Color Purple is an
acclaimed work that won a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award in 1982. The book deals with many
enduring themes: the search for identity, the importance of freedom and independence, and the struggle to
overcome personal and societal limitations. The words or content that some might classify as objectionable
do not detract from the books merits; in fact, they may be essential to its power. Similarly, highlighting
complaints about perceived historical imbalances in Far from the Bamboo Grove by Yoko Kawashima Watkins
does a great disservice to its educational and literary value. It is a novel that conveys the thoughts and
feelings of its 11-year-old protagonist, drawn from the authors real-life experiences as the daughter of a
Japanese official. Similar objections could be made to many historical narratives.
Identifying materials as sensitive is a form of rating and red-flagging materials. It reduces works of
demonstrated educational value to a few isolated elements, simply because they may be offensive to
someone, somewhere. Concerns about prejudicially labeling content have caused leading educational
organizations to oppose the use of warning labels for educational materials. In its Position Statement
Regarding Rating or Red-Flagging Books, the National Council of Teachers of English states:
Lists that segregate books into artificially-created categoriesgive a biased perspective, casting a
negative light on listed books regardless of their literary worth, stoking unnecessary alarm over their
content. Such categorization defers to a minority who object to a bookoften for random, personal, or
ideological reasonsrather than the thousands who have read, taught, enjoyed, and benefitted from the
book. More importantly, "red-flagging" privileges the concerns of would-be censors over the
professional judgment of teachers and librarians[and] narrow[s] the curriculum to only books that are
deemed "safe"
Letter ratings and "red-flagging" is a blatant form of censorship; the practice reduces complex literary
works to a few isolated elementsthose that some individuals may find objectionablerather than
viewing the work as a whole.
http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/rating-books. Instead of rating materials, NCTE encourages
schools to engage parents in a more direct and meaningful way by finding ways to explain how and why
certain books are used as well as the pedagogical purposes these materials serve.
The American Library Association also rejects ratings and labels, calling them prejudicial [and] designed to
restrict access, based on a value judgment [about] the content, language, or themes. The prejudicial label
is used to warn, discourage, or prohibit users or certain groups of users from accessing the resource.
http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations/labelingrating. If schools provide
information to parents about materials that will be assigned, it is essential that such materials do not prejudge the material, but that they instead provide a professional assessment of literary and educational value,
such as that provided by the National Council of Teachers of English, Booklist, School Library Journal, VOYA,
Kirkus Reviews, and many other professional educational resources.
Rating or labeling content in public schools also raises First Amendment concerns, because it implicates
public school officials in improperly restricting or burdening otherwise valuable educational material simply
because it contains content and/or ideas which some find objectionable. The first amendment prevents the
government from regulating expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.
Police Dep't. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 95, 92 S.Ct. 2286, 2290, 33 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972), cited in
Neiderhiser v. Borough of Berwick, 840 F. 2d 213, 218 (3d Cir. 1988). This fundamental principle applies across
the board to government officials, including public school employees: [t]hat they are educating the young
for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of Constitutional freedoms. West Virginia Board of
Education v. Barnette, 319 US 624, 637 (1943). Flagging books because of their content and ideas raises the

same constitutional concerns as removing books because someone dislike[s] the ideas contained in those
books. Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico, 457 US 853, 872 (1982)
(plurality opinion.)
In light of these principles, the use of ratings created by a private entity, the Motion Picture Association of
America (MPAA), as a prescriptive barometer for judging the educational appropriateness of films in
classrooms is particularly troubling. MPAA ratings are adopted for commercial purposes by secret panels of
judges based on unknown criteria. Thus, courts have rejected attempts by government officials to adopt
MPAA ratings for official purposes in a variety of contexts. See Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. v.
Specter, 315 F. Supp. 824 (E.D. Pa. 1970) (the MPAA rating system is so patently vague and lacking in any
ascertainable standards and so infringes upon the plaintiffs' rights to freedom of expression, as protected by
the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution, as to render it unconstitutional.),
Engdahl v. City of Kenosha, 317 F. Supp. 1133, 1136 (E.D. Wis. 1970) (the judgment as to what is protected or
unprotected expression with regard to minors is reached by the Motion Picture Association using
standards and procedures, if any, known only to them.)
While individuals are free to consult ratings to select movies that conform to their personal preferences,
public educators are obliged to select materials based solely on their pedagogical value. Indeed, the policys
categorical exclusion of any films that the MPAA has rated R threatens a great deal of educational material.
Films affected by such a policy range from Steven Spielbergs Schindlers List to Oliver Stones Platoon, films
that are routinely used throughout high schools in the country to illustrate pressing historical truths.
Hindering access to these materials, based on a system that imposes prejudicial value judgments upon
complex works, deprives students of potentially rich educational experiences.
Finally, the policys proposal to provide an alternative assignment to any child whose parent requests one
threatens educational chaos by inviting parents to second-guess any curricular decision on any ground. The
district is certainly free to offer alternative texts to parents with legitimate objections to specific material,
when the school deems it educationally appropriate and feasible to do so. However, multiple requests for
alternative assignments could impose practical burdens with negative consequences for all students, since
teachers will be unlikely to choose to teach alternate works separately to students objecting to a portion of
the curriculum. Instead, they would probably simply remove books that they believed to be educationally
valuable, but that might be controversial, or offensive to some. Monteiro v. Tempe Union School District, 158
F.3d 1022, 1028 n.6 (9th Cir. 1998).
It is impossible to accommodate every parental viewpoint in the curriculum. Every community is home to a
diversity of opinions on political, moral and religious questions. For every parent who objects to an assigned
book, there will be others who favor it. In practice, the attempt to alter school curricula in response to
individual objections means privileging the beliefs of some families over others. It is precisely this form of
viewpoint discrimination by government officials that our constitutional system is designed to prevent.
Moreover, the attempt to eliminate everything that is objectionablewill leave public education in shreds.
Nothing but educational confusion and a discrediting of the public school system can result. McCollum v.
Board of Education (1948) (Jackson, J., concurring).
Those who object to certain kinds of materials are entitled to their views, but they may not impose those
views on others, even to the extent of demanding that the school adopt warnings about, or always provide
alternatives to, objectionable materials. Our courts have ruled that public schools have an obligation to
"administer school curricula responsive to the overall educational needs of the community and its children,"
Leebaert v. Harrington (2d Cir. 2003), not "to cater a curriculum for each student whose parents had genuine
moral disagreements with the school's choice of subject matter." Brown v. Hot, Sexy and Safer Productions,
Inc., 68 F.3d 525, 534 (1st Cir. 1995), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1159 (1996). See also Swanson v. Guthrie Indep.
School Dist., 135 F.3d 694, 699 (10th Cir. 1998); Littlefield v. Forney Indep. School, 268 F.3d 275, 291 (5th Cir.
2001).

Labeling sensitive materialsand opening up the possibility for endless alternative assignmentsis a
prescription for educational chaos that will stigmatize and deter the teaching of valuable works, invite
ongoing controversy, and ultimately undermine the quality of education students receive. We strongly urge
you to select materials for their educational value, and to provide parents with information about why the
materials your professional staff has chosen have been selected along educational grounds.
We hope that this information will be helpful in your discussions. Please let us know if we can be of any
further assistance.
Sincerely,

Joan Bertin, Executive Director

National Coalition Against Censorship

Chris Finan, President

American Booksellers For Free Expression

Charles Brownstein, Executive Director

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

Millie Davis, Senior Developer

Affiliate Groups and Public Outreach
National Council of Teachers of English

Susanna Reich, Chair

Childrens and Young Adult Book Committee
PEN American Center

Cc: Dr. Jamelle S. Wilson, jwilson@hcps.us

Robert L. Hundley, Jr., SB-rhundley @hcps.us
Roger S. Bourassa, SB-rbourassa@hcps.us
John F. Axselle III, SB-jaxselle@hcps.us
Susan P. Dibble, SB-sdipple@hcps.us
Earl J. Hunter, Jr., SB-ehunter@hcps.us
Henry C. Lowry, Jr., SB-hlowry@hcps.us
Norman K. Sulser, SB-nsulser@hcps.us