A South Jersey school district has pulled Toni Morrison’s ‘Bluest Eye’ from its curriculum

For four years, students at Washington Township High School in Gloucester County read Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye in their freshman honors English class.

That was until a parent objected in November, controversy erupted, and the school board voted to immediately remove it from the curriculum, but not the library, before some students could even finish it.

When the board removed the novel last month, the South Jersey district became the latest in a growing book-banning movement taking place in school systems and public libraries in the region and around the country. Some bans have been tied to legislation that limits or prevents teachers from discussing concepts in classrooms.

» READ MORE: School book bans are in the midst of an unprecedented surge, a report says

“It is really rather appalling,” said Amy Penwell, of the advocacy committee for the New Jersey Association of School Librarians. ”It’s not only restricting access to information; it is also undermining the institution of public education.”

The Washington Township school board approved The Bluest Eye for the freshman honors curriculum in 2018, when it was also placed in the school library. (A January motion to remove the book from the library failed.)

After a parent complained in November that the book was sexually explicit and inappropriate for students, the board directed its Reconsideration Committee to take up the matter. One freshman English teacher had finished teaching the book and another was midway through it.

In the complaint, obtained by The Inquirer under the New Jersey Open Public Records Act, the parent admitted not reading the book in its entirety and that his or her student had not made specific complaints about it. The parent said students should not read the book because of its graphic content.

Morrison’s first novel, published in 1970, has been frequently targeted for its portrayal of sensitive topics including racism, incest and sexual abuse. It has appeared several times on the American Library Association’s Top 10 Banned Books list. Morrison, a Pulitzer prize winner, died in 2019.

Set in Lorain, Ohio, in 1941, The Bluest Eye tells the story of a young Black girl named Pecola struggling with her identity. She wants the bluest eyes because she relates that to “whiteness.”

Parents, library officials and students both supporting or opposing the book spoke out at several board meetings. The board typically reviews the curriculum every seven years, but a book challenge can be raised at any time.

The mother of a ninth grader said she found the book “mind-blowing” after she learned her daughter was reading it. Claudette Alburger read aloud to the board pages 162-163 — a part often cited in bans — where the father rapes his daughter. Alburger said it contained “too much sex, disgust and indecency.”

“I can’t disagree with anything you said,” said board president Brian Ellis.

Board member Stacey Dimeo serves on the book review committee and said she was surprised to learn that her 15-year-old son, a freshman, was reading the book.

“It’s an excellent book for a much older kid,” Dimeo said.

Angelina Chila, a student representative to the board, said she read the book two years ago during the pandemic’s virtual learning. She said she was home alone and felt “absolutely uncomfortable” reading it.

Another senior, Holly Duym, urged the board to keep the book and possibly move it to 11th or 12th grade — as recommended by the review committee.

“These topics need to be talked about,” Duym said. “The book is so much more than the context of a few pages.”

Washington Township is believed to be the first New Jersey public school system to remove The Bluest Eye from its curriculum, according to the library association. The Glen Ridge Public Library in Essex County this week rejected a request to pull six LGBTQ books.

After a lengthy discussion at its January meeting, and an 8-1 vote to remove the book from the honors course, the board said it needed more information to decide to move it to an older honors or AP class. They said they may review other books, too.

Ellis, the first Black male to serve as board president, and interim superintendent Jack McGee, did not respond to several messages seeking comment.

According to a recent report from PEN America, a book ban was enacted in an American school district every 3½ hours between July 2021 and July 2022.

Pennsylvania ranked among the states with the most books banned, along with Texas and Florida. Among the books most frequently pulled from classrooms and school libraries are those about race, racism, gender and sexuality.

» READ MORE: Central Bucks has approved a library policy targeting ‘sexualized content’ in books. Here’s what we know.

Judith Pissano, chairman of the Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom committee, submitted a statement to the Washington Township board opposing the book ban and worries that the board will not reconsider the decision.

“The concern is that it will just fall through the cracks,” Pissano, an assistant library director for the Gloucester County Library System in Mullica Hill, said Friday. “It feels like it’s very political.”

Taylar Spann, 17, a Washington Township senior, said reading the book as a freshman gave her a much-needed perspective as a young African American woman in a predominantly white school district. The novel was the only one by a Black author approved for the freshman honors English curriculum.

“It helped me with my identity and how to navigate in a marginalized group,” said Spann, copresident of he African American CulturalClub and a member of the district’s equity council.

Spann said she was 13 when she read the book and “it wasn’t too much.” She said she researched the book and her teacher warned the class about sensitive scenes and gave them the option to not read those passages.

“I feel like they’re participatingin censorship by removing it,” Spann said Thursday. “They’re making decisions for us.”