School board should decide if 'Ultima' deserves banning

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Every year or two, we have a dust-up over a book that a parent finds offensive. The latest example is in Newman, where one mother's objection to "Bless Me, Ultima," a book assigned to sophomores in honors and Advanced Placement English classes, has resulted in the book being removed from the Orestimba High School reading list by the superintendent.

Superintendent Rick Fauss insists that he didn't really ban the book, because it is available in the school library. We would suggest that this matter needs to go to the school board for a final decision.

The Newman-Crows Landing Unified School District has a policy for handling this sort of complaint. The first step was followed -- an alternative reading assignment was offered to the student. After that, the superintendent partially followed the policy for the review of challenged material, which is contributing to ill will in the district and the community.

The superintendent first sought the advice of a committee of four educators, two in the district and two from other school organizations. That panel recommended that the book "should not be removed from the OHS reading options. It supports a multicultural perspective and it is on seven different lists as a landmark piece and it is recommended for the college bound. Proper procedures for adoption were followed and alternative literature was offered."

This first committee suggested that parents receive an explanation for all required reading, including why the books were chosen, warnings about explicit or vulgar language or sexual content, and alternative reading for meeting the same objective. This was a perfectly reasonable conclusion.

The superintendent then asked for another review. This second committee recommended a different literary selection for sophomores or, if no suitable alternative was available, that the book not be used as a summer reading assignment but be used during the normal school year with parental notification and with significant instruction by the teacher. Orestimba teachers say they were willing to abide by this second recommendation, but Fauss removed the book anyway.

There's an added element to this controversy -- the novel is the one selected for students to read and analyze in this year's Academic Decathlon, arguably the nation's premier academic competition. Obviously the organizers found merit in the book for teens. Orestimba High doesn't have an Academic Decathlon team this year, which is unfortunate in itself, but if it did, it isn't clear whether the participants would be allowed to read the required book.

Finally, it's disappointing that since June, when this issue was raised, the superintendent never has found time to read the entire book, which is about 265 pages long. He maintains that he's read enough to make his decision.

Newman's policy says a challenge over instructional materials "may be brought" to the governing board for a final decision. That's where this matter should go -- to settle this case and to try to head off challenges that could occur in the future.

We recommend that trustees read the whole book and listen to Orestimba's English teachers before making their decision. They also might want to take note that another of the six books listed as required reading for Orestimba sophomores is "Fahrenheit 451," Ray Bradbury's well-known science fiction novel about book banning.