JGL Principal Erika Jacobsen White argued for the Maryland ACLU yesterday on behalf of Leslie Thompson, a parent in Harford County fighting a book ban by the Harford County School Board. Flamer is a semi-autobiographical graphic novel by Mike Curato about a Filipino-American teenage boy who is navigating complex issues of his racial and sexual identities, bullying, and belonging.
The book was challenged for removal after another parent saw a Fox News segment on the book, and though she never read the book herself, claimed that the book “plants ideas in the heads of children.” The book went through a rigorous review by a diverse Reconsideration Committee formed pursuant to the regulatory framework of the Freedom to Read Act. They unanimously voted to keep the book on school library shelves. That decision was adopted by the Superintendent. Nonetheless, the Harford County School Board banned the book – ignoring the standard of review, Maryland law, and the First Amendment.
On appeal, the State Board reversed. The local board appealed, seeking to keep the ban in place. The Maryland General Assembly made crystal clear when it passed the Freedom to Read Act that books may not be banned from Maryland school libraries “solely because of the origin, background, or views of the individual who created the material,” or because of “partisan, ideological, or religious disapproval.” Md. Code, Educ. 4-412(a)(2)-(3). Yet, that is exactly what the Harford County Board of Education did when it reversed the Reconsideration Committee’s decision to keep Flamer on the shelves following its rigorous review of the book.
The Board argued that it could ban any book it wanted based on its “collective wisdom.” But that is not the law in Maryland. Judge Curtin, in the first decision interpreting the Freedom to Read Act, applied the correct standard of review and concluded that the Board’s conduct was arbitrary, unreasonable, and illegal. The State Board of Education’s decision was affirmed.
As Justice Brennan noted for the plurality of the Supreme Court noted in Island Trees Free Sch. Dist. No. 26 v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853, 864 (1982), part of teaching citizenship requires that, “we not strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount the important principles of our government as mere platitudes.” Flamer will remain on the shelves, and the rule of law prevailed.
