'Filthy Book' Attack Spotlights Date-Rape Novel

By Christa Fletcher

WeNews correspondent

Monday, December 13, 2010

A book-banning effort against "Speak," a young-adult novel about date rape, is creating an uproar. A campus group is making a documentary, a Twitter feed is discussing censorship and a library group expects the controversy to attract teen readers.

(WOMENSENEWS)--A Missouri State University professor's bid to ban a young-adult novel about date rape, among other "filthy books," from the school district's English courses is spurring young-adult authors and teachers to speak out against censorship in a country where more than 10,676 books have been challenged in libraries and schools since 1990.

"Teens don't live in a vacuum," Andrea Cremer, author of the young-adult novel "Nightshade," wrote in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal. "They inhabit the same brutal world as adults without the knowledge and tools of adulthood. For those teens whose lives have already been affected by drugs, violence, suicide or any number of traumatic experiences--what children as well as adults struggle with--books can provide comfort, healing or simply the realization that one isn't alone."

One in six women will be a victim of sexual assault during her life, according to data published by the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, based in Washington, D.C. Young women between 16 and 19 are four times more likely to be victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault.

"Speak," a young-adult novel by Laurie Halse Anderson about a teen who was raped at a party, is on the New York Times bestseller list, was a National Book Award finalist and has received many honors, including the Michael L. Printz and Golden Kite awards.

However, Wesley Scroggins, an associate professor of business management at Missouri State University in Springfield and a fundamentalist Christian, is demanding that "Speak" and two other books be banned from public high school English coursework in Republic, Mo.

Scroggins filed his complaint in June to the Missouri public school board and wrote an opinion piece on Sept. 18, arguing that the two rape scenes in the novel should be classified as "soft pornography."

Call to Ban Two Other Books

One of the other books Scroggins wants struck from high school reading lists is "Slaughterhouse Five," the 1969 antiwar novel by Kurt Vonnegut, which Scroggins complains has too much profane language and sex for high school students.

The other is "Twenty Boy Summer," by Sarah Ockler, published in 2009. Scroggins said the book "glorifies drunken teen parties" and sex on the beach with condoms.

He is opposed by those who argue rape is a violent act of assault--not porn--and that removing the book would infringe on students' First Amendment rights.

"Teen readers lose their First Amendment rights as well as access to information that may help them grow intellectually or emotionally if a book is unjustly removed from their local school or public library, or if the library unjustly restricts access to it in some way," Beth Yoke, executive director of the Chicago-based Young Adult Library Services Association, said in an interview with Women's eNews.

Since 1990, the association has documented the removal of at least 10 books from the schools and public libraries in Missouri. However, the information provided to the group is voluntary, said Bryan Campbell, an administrative assistant for the Chicago-based Office for Intellectual Freedom, in an email interview.

He also said the group is working on a system for larger data collection that may provide a more reliable picture of book banning statistics in the future.

Each year the American Library Association, based in Chicago, recommends a variety of books to libraries, including "contemporary realistic fiction that reflects the diversity of the teen experience."

Hundreds of books, including some recommended by the organization, are also challenged or banned from schools and libraries each year.

Between 1990 and 2009 the most common reason listed for challenging a book was "sexually explicit," at 3,046 complaints. Complaints of "violence" numbered 1,258, according to data provided by the American Library Association.

| More