I’ve hinted that things in Bartlesville are far from over. Let’s talk a little about that today, as I will be talking about it later. I’m going to be on the radio tonight at 6:15 talking about the Bartlesville situation on The Agenda with Joe Solmonese, which is XM radio channel 120. If you don’t have XM, they should have it in the audio archive once it’s over. (And I’ll post the link here when it appears.)

As you will hear tonight, I have decided to try to fight this as much as I can. The reason is simple . . . this book has been “labeled” because it has homosexual content. Labeling or banning is an unconstitutional mess, full-stop. Labeling or banning an otherwise squeaky-clean book because it has positive homosexual content is salting the wound.

But people get away with it, because sufficient counter-challenges are hard to mount—and because, as we have seen in this case, people do things without telling the public.

So I have decided that my Life Policy is zero tolerance. If you try to take one of my books off the shelf for an insane reason like this, I will come running and flailing at you like a maniac. And I just won’t stop. And I promise it will not be quiet or graceful. And I’m going to bring as many of you who want to come with me along, and we can all run flailing and screaming. Decorum is so 2006.

To this end, what I’m working on now is contacting the ACLU, which is actually kind of decorous, but I can punch up my efforts later if I actually have to fly down to Bartlesville and do my long-promised improper dancing. I have no idea if this will work, but that’s what I’m doing. And the reason I think this might be effective is that there seems to be precedent in these cases. Look at this, from the ALA website:

Counts v. Cedarville School District, 295 F.Supp.2d 996 (W.D. Ark. 2003)

The school board of the Cedarville, Arkansas school district voted to restrict students’ access to the Harry Potter books, on the grounds that the books promoted disobedience and disrespect for authority and dealt with witchcraft and the occult. As a result of the vote, students in the Cedarville school district were required to obtain a signed permission slip from their parents or guardians before they would be allowed to borrow any of the Harry Potter books from school libraries. The District Court overturned the Board’s decision and ordered the books returned to unrestricted circulation, on the grounds that the restrictions violated students’ First Amendment right to read and receive information. In so doing, the Court noted that while the Board necessarily performed highly discretionary functions related to the operation of the schools, it was still bound by the Bill of Rights and could not abridge students’ First Amendment right to read a book on the basis of an undifferentiated fear of disturbance or because the Board disagreed with the ideas contained in the book.

I like it!

Can it be much clearer? Sorry, committee members (including my elusive friend Janet Vernon . . . 84 days of silence from you . . . you sly minx!), you are actually bound by the First Amendment.

The lesson is this, book banners:

No, you can’t violate students’ rights.

No, you can’t just wildly discriminate against other people.

No, you are not the boss of everyone.

No, you may not have a cookie.

Also, just no.

Who’s with me? Let’s fight them off together!

So, if you know anyone in the ACLU, any group that fights things like this, law students who are interested in issues like this, or just people who like authors, let me know!

And committee guys in Bartlesville . . . if you just do the right thing and put the book back, a lot of annoyance can be avoided. Plus, you will be doing the aforementioned right thing.

I may fail, but I will at least have gone down improperly dancing. And be warned . . . this guy was my teacher, and I am just as good:

Posted: Monday, July 23rd, 2007 @ 7:19 pm
Categories: Bartlesville, book banning, improper dancing, legal action.
Subscribe to the comments feed if you like. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.