The usual battle over textbook adoptions in public schools is now extended to their library books (“Push to Remove Sexually Explicit Books Divides a Texas School District,” The Wall Street Journal, July 1). Although such books are not required reading, their mere presence on the shelves is enough to divide stakeholders.
Although young people are far more sophisticated today than their peers decades ago because of the images they routinely see on television, I believe that not all material is appropriate for all. The hard question is who is to decide? I’d rather err on the side of openness because targeted books can help students understand people who are different from them.
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