- A school district in Mississippi removed To Kill a Mockingbird from curriculum
- The school board vice president said the language makes people ‘uncomfortable’
- The decision set Twitter ablaze with many saying it is censorship
The award-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird’ is being removed from a middle school reading list in a Mississippi school district.
The Sun Herald reports that Biloxi administrators pulled the novel from the eighth-grade curriculum this week. School board vice president Kenny Holloway says the district received complaints that some of the book’s language ‘makes people uncomfortable.’
‘There were complaints about it,’ she said. However, the school board did not vote on the decision
Harper Lee, the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, died in 2016 at the age of 89
Published in 1960, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee deals with racial inequality in a small Alabama town.
A message on the school’s website says To Kill A Mockingbird teaches students that compassion and empathy don’t depend upon race or education. Holloway says other books can teach the same lessons.
The Sun Herald received a email that said the decision was made ‘mid-lesson plan, the students will not be allowed to finish the reading of To Kill A Mockingbird …. due to the use of the ‘N’ word.’
A Mississippi school district has removed To Kill A Mockingbird from the lesson plan
The reader said: ‘I think it is one of the most disturbing examples of censorship I have ever heard, in that the themes in the story humanize all people regardless of their social status, education level, intellect, and of course, race. It would be difficult to find a time when it was more relevant than in days like these.’
The book remains in Biloxi school libraries.
The decision to remove the book from the curriculum set the internet ablaze in anger.
‘To Kill a Mockingbird should be required reading. This is insane’ one user wrote.
‘Until I saw To Kill a Mockingbird I couldn’t visualize how someone’s lie could get a person killed. This should be required reading’ another said.
‘You know what makes me uncomfortable? Censorship. That’s what makes me uncomfortable. Say NO to book banning!’ A Twitter user posted.
‘If To Kill a Mockingbird makes you uncomfortable you should probably be reading To Kill a Mockingbird’ one person pointed out.
