'The Bluest Eye' Restored To Pinellas High School Library Shelves

PINELLAS COUNTY, FL — After removing Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison’s novel, “The Bluest Eye,” from public school libraries in January, the Pinellas County School Board has reversed its decision.

The decision came after a number of residents, including one Pinellas County school teacher, protested its removal at April's school board meeting. No one spoke at the meeting for the removal of the book.

Teacher and parent Nicole St. Leger said the school district banned the book without a fair review, including a public discussion as school district policy dictates. The ban came unexpectedly after an informal request from a parent who objected to a rape scene in the book.

Since then, the school district has instituted a formal process for requesting books, videos and other materials be removed from school media centers and classrooms, including a formal review committee to consider such requests.

St. Leger said the process was followed when the school board denied a parent's request to remove the Disney film, "Ruby Bridges," from elementary schools in March.

"You are not being transparent as you said you are going to be as more books are removed from shelves without complaint," St. Leger told the school board.

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She said the result is students feel less safe and supported in the schools.

"Students notice that all the LGBTQ Safe Place stickers are no longer up in those classrooms," St. Leger said. "They no longer wonder, they know, that school is no longer a safe place for themselves or their friends to be loved and learned in. They notice that one member of the vocal minority of censorship advocates can get a book pulled without review or reinstatement. And they notice how it affects their education in a negative way."

She said the school district needs to let the community know what decisions are being made as it implements the new state laws surrounding Gov. Ron DeSantis' mission to give parents more authority in the classrooms.

"There needs to be a public review of 'The Bluest Eye.' It has not happened yet, even though the 'Ruby Bridges' movie took place after this (the removal of Morrison's book) had occurred," she said. "Please start following your processes more clearly."

"I am concerned about the objections of a few outweighing the pleas of the many as is the case with the 'Ruby Bridges' film and the book, 'The Bluest Eye,'" said Pinellas County resident Emanuel Matalon. "I'm concerned that the slippery slope of censorship has been greased by forces outside of the district. I am concerned that the books and films that are being removed from our libraries are ones that shine a light on people of color or people from marginalized societies whose voice has historically been diminished and suppressed."

Matalon said the governor and state Legislature are increasingly taking control of local schools boards in matters that should be a local decision.

"Dubiously titled laws like Individual Freedom sounds pretty on paper, but in reality the law should be called Whitewashing History," he said.

"Will you find ways to advocate for our history teachers so that they can teach history accurately? Or will you stand idly by as we rewrite history's slippery slope, casting America's Civil War as the War of North Aggression?" he asked.

He said among the tools history teachers use to pique the interest of students are current events.

"It is baseball season. We are about to celebrate Jackie Robinson Day," Matalon said. "How can a history teacher accurately administer a lesson on Jackie Robinson and the integration of Major League Baseball without talking about the Negro Leagues, where Robinson played before joining the Dodgers?"

"I would encourage you to separate your desire to shelter our children from the need to educate them," said Sarah Peacock, a parent and former student of Pinellas County schools. "I would urge you to push back on the laws that limit our ability to provide learning materials that speak to the experiences of all of our students and provide insight into a wider human experience than their own. You are our voice, and you must do everything you can to prevent the erosion of our public school systems."

At the same time, she agreed with statements made earlier in the meeting by school board member Laura Hine. She said parents, students and the community should feel free to discuss their objections to or approval of learning materials without being verbally harassed.

"I agree with board member Hine," she said. "At this point, we need to be solution-based. I would encourage parents and students to come together and get involved, especially as more legislation is passed that will alienate and endanger our children and neighbors."

Hine said she thought the way the controversy over the "Ruby Bridges" film was resolved was a model of how these issues should be treated — by following a process without anger and ill will.

A group of parents even wrote a letter to the parent who challenged the showing of the film in elementary schools, telling her that they welcome and appreciate her opinion, Hine said.

"In the three previous years, we've had one formal objection (to a book)," Hine said. "But this semester there have been five."

She said passage of the Parental Rights in Education law, giving parents the right to review and question materials used to teach their children, has created a hostile environment "and I think language can get very aggressive."

"Our society is like a pile of dry kindling," she said. "One spark can ignite (a controversy). I wonder as a general community if we can do better when an issue arises, show that we value voices and sharing opinions, but we do so respectfully."

That's the very point a group of political science graduate students from the St. Petersburg campus of the University of South Florida made to the school board when the students presented the results of a group analysis they did on the issue of banning books.

"We based our proposal on a similar project implemented in Flagler County schools," Kevin Roland said. "The Flagler County School District received heavy backlash from students after they began removing books from classrooms following the enactment of the legislation."

To resolve the increasingly hostile discourse, the Flagler County School District opened applications for residents interested in getting involved in the issue by reading the challenged books, getting together to discuss whether the books or curriculum meet the criteria of "objectionable" under the new Florida law and then making a recommendation to the school board.

He suggested that Pinellas County adopt a similar process.

"The second semester (of the school year) has brought a return of the problem of toxic leadership," said USF student Dennis Apgar.

He said DeSantis claims that laws like the Parental Right in Education law, derogatorily referred to as the "Don't Say Gay" law, and the Individual Freedom law, nicknamed the "Stop WOKE Act" by DeSantis, claim to "give parents the right to protect their children from books that contain school lessons with explicit materials such as sexual or pornographic imagery."

"But opponents of the bills say this will block the availability of African-American literature or literature containing LGBT, Apgar said. "These laws do little to protect key curricula that allow students to learn abut their own history and come to accept their identities."

On the heels of those comments, the school district put together a committee of seven media specialists to review "The Bluest Eye."

Following three hours of discussion, the media specialists agreed that the book should be available in high school media centers for "self-selection" and can be used by teachers in classes after receiving parental consent and offering alternative selections to the students who opt out.

“After discussion, the team recommended that the district make ‘The Bluest Eye’ by Toni Morrison available for self-selection in district library media centers for students in grades nine, 10, 11 and 12 with no parental permission requirements,” district chief strategy officer Jennifer Dull said in an email to school board members.