15,000 signers say: put banned books in the TUSD libraries

by David Safier

Change.org has once again demonstrated its worth as an agent of social change. TUSD teacher and former MAS teacher Norma Gonzalez posted a petition on the site telling the Board, "Don't lock up knowledge, return books to students now!" Currently, 15,362 have signed. The purpose of the petition is to take the books pulled from the shelves and put them in the schools' libraries.

With all of the bad publicity, district spokespeople are going out of their way to say that these acts do not equal censorship and that they support free speech. If board members truly support free speech, however, the least they should do is immediately remove these books from the "district storage facility" and make them available in each school's library.

I call on the Tucson school board to immediately return these books — placing them in the libraries of the schools they were taken from. Knowledge cannot be boxed off and carried away from students who want to learn!

According to Jeff Biggers, Gonzalez delivered the petitions to TUSD administrators. We'll see if they do anything. Even Huppenthal has stated publicly, there's nothing wrong with having those books in the schools, so why should they object?

SIDE NOTE: A commenter said she brought up the idea of creating a display of the banned books to a Pima County librarian, who was receptive and said she would bring it up at a meeting. We'll see what happens. Librarians are huge free speech people. The American Library Association "celebrates" a Banned Book Week every year [Note: The ALA uses the term "banned," which TUSD would like to ban from the MAS discussion.] The ALA has also joined other groups in condemning the removal of books from MAS classrooms. So it would be consistent for Pima County libraries to spotlight this most recent example of books being withdrawn from use.