By Electronic Mail

October 10, 2014

Superintendent Monte Woolstenhulme
Members of the School Board
Teton School District 401
445 N. Main Street, PO Box 775
Driggs, ID 83422
Dear Superintendent Woolstenhulme and Members of the School Board:
As organizations concerned with the freedom to read and the application of First Amendment law and
principles in public institutions, we followed the challenge to Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya last year and
wrote urging you to retain it. We understand that the controversy over the book more recently stimulated a
proposal to require parents to sign consent forms for assigned books and to offer an alternative assignment
to any student whose parent objects to a book. We make no comment on the text of the draft parental notice
or consent form; however, we want to raise a more fundamental concern about the proposal, which we
believe would undermine the education of students and compromise important constitutional principles. We
fear that the current proposal, if adopted, has the potential to unleash multiple requests for alternative
assignments that will be unmanageable as a practical matter and have a detrimental effect on the curriculum.
While the sentiment of the form to provide parents the opportunity to object to an assignment for their
own children is a solid tenet of a district reconsideration policy, the current proposal invites parents to
second guess the curriculum. This is unacceptable. While we recommend that alternative texts be offered in
response to parental objections when the school deems it educationally appropriate and feasible, this does
not imply that parents should be allowed to choose alternative reading assignments, along with homework,
tests and other elements of the instructional program, for an already established curriculum. This could
wreak havoc with the curriculum. The possibilities for complaints are endless, since nothing is immune,
whether it involves race, gender, religion, sex, violence, history, science, politics, the environment, or any
other issue on which people disagree. There could be (and have been) objections to Nickel and Dimed, by
Barbara Ehrenreich, because of its depiction of poverty; to historical materials that include critical statements
about US policies or actions; to books like Native Son by Richard Wright for their depiction of ghetto life; to A
Day No Pigs Will Die by Robert Newton Peck because of its descriptions of farm life; to The Diary ofA Young
Girl by Anne Frank because it is a real downer; to a Shel Silverstein poem in A Light in the Attic because it
encourages children to break dishes so they wont have to dry them.
The problems that would ensue from giving parents this kind of control over the educational program were
recognized by Deputy Attorney General Brian Kane, in comments on a recent parental rights proposal in
the Idaho legislature: there is no case law giving parents a right to direct the education of their children in
public schools because individual parents could give conflicting direction to the public school.
http://idahoreporter.com/gem-gop-asks-state-party-parental-rights-resolution-educating-children/

In our view, the proposal misconstrues both the legal rights of parents and the duties of public school
officials. While parents do have a general right to guide their childrens upbringing and education, they have
no right to choose the curriculum. Instead, the public schools, as noted in our previous letter, have an
obligation to administer school curricula responsive to the overall educational needs of the community and
its children. Leebaert v. Harrington, 332 F.3d 134, 141 (2d Cir. 2003). Thus, parents have no right to tell a
public school what his or her child will and will not be taught. Id. If parents had such a right, the schools
would be forced to cater a curriculum for each student whose parents had genuine moral disagreements with
the schools choice of subject matter. Brown v. Hot, Sexy and Safer Productions, Inc. , 68 F.3d 525, 534 (1st Cir.
1995), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1159 (1996). See also Swanson v. Guthrie Indep. School Dist., 135 F.3d 694, 699
(10th Cir. 1998); Littlefield v. Forney Indep. School, 268 F.3d 275, 291 (5th Cir. 2001).
It is impossible to accommodate every parental viewpoint in the curriculum. Every community is home to a
diversity of opinions on political, moral and religious questions. For every parent who objects to an assigned
book, there will be others who favor it. In practice, the attempt to alter school curricula in response to
individual objections means privileging the beliefs of some families over others. It is precisely this form of
viewpoint discrimination by government officials that our constitutional system is designed to prevent.
Moreover, the attempt to eliminate everything that is objectionable will leave public education in shreds.
Nothing but educational confusion and a discrediting of the public school system can result.McCollum v.
Board ofEducation (1948) (Jackson, J., concurring).
The practical effect of forcing educators to adjust the curriculum to avoid or accommodate potential
objections will be the removal of valuable books from the curriculum: due to the practical burdens, schools
would be unlikely to choose to teach alternate works separately to students objecting to a portion of the
curriculum. Instead, they would probably simply remove books that they believed to be educationally
valuable, but that might be controversial, or offensive to some. Monteiro v. Tempe Union School District, 158
F.3d 1022, 1028 n.6 (9th Cir. 1998). This result, however, implicates the First Amendment rights of other
students. As many courts recognize, removing educationally valuable material in response to objections to
the message, ideas or content is vulnerable to legal challenge. Id. at 1029 (recognizing the First Amendment
right of students to read books selected for their legitimate educational value.) See also Parker v. Hurley, 514
F.3d 87 (1st Cir. 2008) (rejecting effort to remove books that offend parents and students religious beliefs),
and Pratt v. Ind. Sch. Dist. No. 831, Forest Lake, 670 F.2d 771 (8th Cir. 1982) (First Amendment violated when
films removed because of hostility to content and message).
One of the basic goals of the public school education system is to endow students with the knowledge widely
shared by students across the country. Indeed, confronting controversial and complex themes in literature is
part of the educational mission of the schools. A school district puts its students at a distinct disadvantage if
it fails to introduce them to the range of ideas that they will encounter in college and in life. Excluding works
out of fear that they might be controversial would deny students exposure to a wide range of classic and
contemporary material that forms the basis for a high-quality education, including works by Shakespeare,
Hawthorne, Faulkner, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Angelou, and Toni Morrison, to name but a few.
Parental concerns about curricular materials can be addressed through policies and procedures for
challenging instructional materials, which is the approach recommended
by most educational organizations
1
and adopted by many if not most school districts nationwide. Such a process helps ensure that schools
1 Model procedures commonly provide an opportunity for informal resolution with the teacher or principal in the first

instance, at which point an alternative assignment may be offered, if appropriate. If this is unsuccessful, the
complainant normally is offered the option to file a written request for reconsideration on a standard form, specifying
the basis for the challenge and the requested remedy, among other things. A review committee of teachers and
administrators, the professionals most familiar with students educational needs and interests, then evaluates the
merits of the complaint and makes a recommendation to a designated school official, who issues a decision. Often
policies provide for a final appeal to the School Board. See also The First Amendment in Schools: A Resource Guide,
Roles and Responsibilities: B. Principles Governing Selection and Retention of Materials in Schools and C. Complaint
Procedures. http://ncac.org/resource/first-amendment-in-schools/#principles

remain on a solid legal footing, preserves the integrity of the education program, and enables school staff
to engage with parents in a manner that is thorough, objective, consistent, and fair. If schools provide
information to parents about materials that will be assigned, it is essential that such materials do not
reflect restrictive value judgments about sensitive content or pre-judge the material, but that they provide
a professional assessment of literary and educational value, such as that provided by the National Council
of Teachers of English, Booklist, School Library Journal, VOYA, Kirkus Reviews and many other professional
educational resources.
For the reasons set out above, we strongly advise against adopting the current proposal. We hope that this
information will be helpful in your discussions. Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.
Sincerely,

Joan Bertin, Executive Director

National Coalition Against Censorship

Chris Finan, President

American Booksellers Foundation For Free Expression

Judy Platt, Director

Free Expression Advocacy
Association of American Publishers

Charles Brownstein, Executive Director

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

Millie Davis, Senior Developer

Affiliate Groups and Public Outreach
National Council of Teachers of English

Susanna Reich, Chair

Children's and Young Adult Book Committee
PEN American Center

Lin Oliver, Executive Director

Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators

CC: Monte Woolstenhulme, mrw@d401.k12.id.us

Becca Ross, bross@tsd401.org
Bonny Etchemenedy, betchemendy@d401.k12.id.us
Ben Kearsley, benkearsley@d401.k12.id.us
Delwyn Jensen, djensen@d401.k12.id.us
Nancy Arnold, narnold@d401.k12.id.us
Doug Peterson, dpetersen@d401.k12.id.us