Do school officials possess greater authority in removing books from the curriculum than in the school library?
Yes. School officials possess greater authority to regulate matters pertaining to the curriculum, and they remain on surer legal footing when the restricted texts are kept available in the school library. Using the Hazelwood standard of student expression, several lower courts have determined that school officials can remove books from the curriculum as long as they have a reasonable educational basis for doing so. For example, one federal appeals court determined that school officials could remove a humanities textbook because two selections in the book, Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Miller’s Tale, were deemed too sexually explicit and vulgar. A group of students and parents protested, pointing out that the two challenged pieces were “acclaimed masterpieces of Western literature.” The court acknowledged this, but determined that the school board’s actions were, under Hazelwood, reasonably related “to its legitimate concerns regarding the appropriateness (for this
Related Questions
- Is library stock, including books, considered to be information held by an authority within the meaning of the Act?
- May school officials remove library books for reasons other than objections to the ideas contained in the books?
- Do school officials possess greater authority in removing books from the curriculum than in the school library?
