GRAND RAPIDS CHARTER TOWNSHIP, Mich. — The American Civil Liberties Union continues its fights against banning books— now going after Forest Hills Public Schools.
The ACLU sent a five-page letter to the district Thursday in an effort to better understand why officials removed six books: Looking for Alaska, My Friend Dahmer, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, The Handmaid’s Tale (Graphic Novel), 19 Minutes and Beyond Magenta.
READ MORE: Forest Hills school board meets after superintendent admits to removing controversial books
Jay Kaplan, a staff attorney for the ACLU, says school districts should back off.
“Overall goal— we want to stop this kind of censorship, this kind of idea of censoring ideas,” Kaplan said. “If parents have concerns about what their children are reading, they can make those decisions for their own children, but they do not make those decisions for everybody else in the district.”
Kaplan also accused the district of making changes to the first-grade curriculum.
“If you’re removing curriculum materials because you don’t want students to be exposed to the diversity of people, including LGBTQ people, that could raise some civil rights issues, too,” Kaplan said.
The majority of the letter to the district focuses on ‘Ida and Jake’ books— a series in which one of the main characters has two moms.
“We want to make sure that everything is above board. I mean, people within the school district have a right to know how these decisions are being made, and we want to make sure that these actions aren’t, were not happening for the explicit purpose of trying to ban mention of LGBTQ people or to eliminate stories that feature LGBTQ individuals,” Kaplan explained.
The ACLU’s letter contains emails between FHPS employees and a book sales representative.
The sales rep allegedly wrote in one of the emails that “most teachers and administrators are okay with the content but are also very conscientious as to how they will be accepted in your community.”
“There’s a lot of vitriol that’s being spewed at your local school board meetings,” Kaplan said. “Just because someone’s coming there because they want to do something that might go against the law, go against our Constitution, doesn’t mean that you should buckle. The law will support you doing the right thing.”
ACLU Letter to Forest Hills Public Schools by WXMI on Scribd
FOX 17 reached out to Forest Hills Public Schools for comment and has not heard back.
Earlier this year, Superintendent Dan Behm apologized for the removal of books and claimed that he directed staff to put them back on the shelves.
Behm added that the district planned to implement a system in which parents could specify which books their kids can check out.
Then, Behm announced his plans to retire.
