A police officer was called to a Massachusetts middle school after receiving an anonymous complaint that a commonly banned book on gender expression was being read inside an eighth-grade classroom.
A plain-clothed officer, equipped with a body camera, was deployed to W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School in Great Barrington on Dec. 8 to search for the highly controversial book: “Gender Queer”.
The award-winning graphic memoir by Maia Kobabe — which details the author’s exploration of sexuality and gender identity through adolescence into adulthood — was the most banned book across the country for two straight years, according to the American Library Association.
The Great Barrington Police Department received a complaint about “concerning illustrations” in the book that an eighth-grade teacher had made available to students in their classroom, Police Chief Paul Storti told Boston.com.
The anonymous complainant said the book had images of sexual acts.
Because the issue was filed with the police department, Storti said they had a “duty to examine” it further.
An officer arrived toward the end of the school day and, alongside the teacher, looked for the book but was unable to locate it.
District Superintendent Peter Dillion said in a statement that the book was “not a class text but a supplemental material that students can request to sign out.”
Police notified the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office, but the investigation was later dropped as the office determined it was a “matter to be managed within the Berkshire Hills Regional School District.”
Dillion said he had wished the concerned patron had come to the school district first before going to the police, as “we have systems to respond to concerns about curriculum.”
News of the incident spread wildly through Commonwealth State and even grabbed the attention of Governor Maura Healey, who said that “book banning has no place in Massachusetts,” according to Boston.com.
“That’s partly what is so concerning,” said Ruth Bourquin, a managing attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts. “Police going into schools and searching for books is the sort of thing you hear about in communist China and Russia. What are we doing?”
The school’s librarian, Jennifer Guerin, said it was “critically important for concerned community members to remember that the current situation is not about forcing a book into students’ hands.”
“It’s about the freedom to read. It’s about providing voluntary access to a well-written, highly acclaimed resource in a safe place for a teenager who might want or need it,” she said, according to the Berkshire Eagle, which first reported the news.
Book bans have taken root in schools across the country, with Florida and Texas banning vast multitudes of books.
In August, one Texas school district pulled Anne Frank’s Diary, as well as the Bible after community members complained.
A Moms of Liberty chapter in Florida also got five books banned from a school district after arguing they had graphic depictions of sex, violence, pedophilia, bestiality, and other subject matters.