Word in this very brief report that a parent has asked the Toronto District School Board to remove To Kill a Mockingbird from the library at the Malvern Collegiate Institute (a public secondary school).

The book was published in 1960. The main plot involves a white lawyer defending a black man accused of rape in a fictional Alabama town.

Racial injustice is a major theme in the novel and racial epithets are used in the text.

The Toronto District School Board meeting is Wednesday night.

Source: CityNews

UPDATE (10/15) From The Globe and Mail

An anticipated debate over a parent’s right to object to certain books their children study at Toronto public schools didn’t take place last night, leaving one trustee claiming the others deliberately shut him out of the meeting.

Trustee Josh Matlow had hoped to object to a policy that allows parents to ask a principal to excuse their child from reading any particular book. It’s an informal process that made headlines earlier this school year over a Toronto parent’s suggestion that Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird be replaced because of its language.

Mr. Matlow believes the board should define what “reasonable grounds” it requires before agreeing a student need not study a book, saying it borders on being too “politically correct.” He added a “discussion” on the matter as a last-minute item on the agenda, but Trustee Cathy Dandy adjourned the meeting when he was out of the room. Mr. Matlow suggested she did so deliberately.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 and is filed under Access to Information, Censorship, Libraries and Librarianship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.