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Opinion
 

Staff Editorial

                Chris Elliott                        Zach Lee                  Christian Palmer
                Geronimo Rodriguez       Blake Whitaker       Kristen Young

Superintendent: Just say 'no' to literature

It’s reasonable to expect a school board to prohibit subject matter in which explicit sex and violence outweigh educational value. But the superintendent of Central Texas’ Judson Independent School District slid off the wrong end of the slippery slope when he removed Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale from the Advanced Placement English curriculum.

The critically acclaimed book tells of a fundamentalist Christian theocracy in which women are stripped of all freedoms and assigned to classes -- handmaids like the central character are used to breed children for virgin wives. JISD Superintendent Ed Lyman pulled the 1985 novel because of its portrayal of Christianity and sexual situations that fail to support "abstinence outside the bonds of marriage."

Following Lyman’s logic, here are a few other candidates for banned status: The Canterbury Tales (adultery, flatulence), Catcher in the Rye (prostitution, profanity, latent homosexuality), Romeo and Juliet (acceptable provided innuendos are ignored), The Great Gatsby (illegal alcohol consumption, flappers), The Stranger (murder, smoking, author is French) and All Quiet on the Western Front (violence, goose theft). And that’s just a start.

AP students are presumably mature enough to read at an advanced level, where literature often deals with "grown-up" facts of life like sex and violence. The question for schools should be how the text approaches sensitive subject matter. Atwood’s novel is not gratuitously explicit, and it’s no more anti-Christian than 1984 is anti-democracy. Even so, if a student finds The Handmaid’s Tale offensive, he or she has the right to opt for an alternative selection.

Lyman has not backed down, even when a committee of teachers, students and a parent voted to reinstate the book. The committee will discuss further action in a meeting tonight.

If you’d like to express your feelings on the subject, e-mail Lyman at elyman@judson.k12.tx.us.