A Tennessee school board has voted unanimously to remove a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about Holocaust survivors from its eighth-grade curriculum, citing a drawing of a nude woman, eight swear words and its ‘not wise or healthy’ content.
The McMinn County Board of Education voted 10-0 to remove ‘Maus’ by Art Spiegelman from the curriculum on January 10, despite educators arguing that the graphic novel is an ‘anchor text’ in eighth-grade English language arts instruction and the centerpiece of a months-long study of the Holocaust.
Published in 1991, Maus is inspired by the story of Spiegelman’s parents, Vladek and Anja, who survived the Holocaust after being shipped to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. The graphic novel depicts Nazis as cats and Jewish people as mice.
The board heard from instructional supervisors and other school officials who defended the use of the book in class but were unanimously overruled.
‘I went to school here 13 years. I learned math, English, reading and history. I never had a book with a naked picture in it, never had one with foul language. … So, this idea that we have to have this kind of material in the class in order to teach history, I don’t buy it,’ said board member Mike Cochran.
Spiegelman, 73, called the ban ‘Orwellian’ in an interview with CNBC, saying that he learned about it on Wednesday, a day before Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The Holocaust Museum has defended the book and said it plays a ‘vital role’ in teaching about the World War II-era genocide.
The McMinn County school board in Tennessee voted 10-0 to remove ‘Maus’ by Art Spiegelman from the eighth grade curriculum over eight swear words and nudity
The graphic novel by Art Spiegelman (above) is inspired by the story of Art’s parents
Art’s father, Vladek Spiegelman (above), survived the Auschwitz concentration camp
The Holocaust Museum has defended Maus as playing a ‘vital role’ in educating children about the genocide. Their tweet came on Wednesday, the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day
The McMinn Board of Education declined to comment on the ban or how long the book has been taught at its schools, routing DailyMail.com to the board members who banned it.
Board members’ objections revolved around a drawing of a nude woman and eight swear words that appear throughout the 296-page book, according to minutes from the meeting.
Lee Parkison, the board’s director of schools, said he tried to find a workaround to the profanity.
‘I consulted with our attorney, Mr. Scott Bennett. After consulting with him, we decided the best way to fix or handle the language in this book was to redact it. Considering copyright, we decided to redact it to get rid of the eight curse words and the picture of the woman that was objected to,’ Parkinson said.
But Bennett told him there were copyright issues associated with censoring swear words from an artistic work.
Board member Tony Allman said the book was unacceptable with or without the redacted portions.
‘Being in the schools, educators and stuff, we don’t need to enable or somewhat promote this stuff. It shows people hanging, it shows them killing kids. Why does the educational system promote this kind of stuff? It is not wise or healthy,’
Instructional supervisor Julie Goodin responded: ‘I can talk of the history, I was a history teacher, and there is nothing pretty about the Holocaust, and for me this was a great way to depict a horrific time in history.
‘Mr. Spiegelman did his very best to depict his mother passing away and we are almost 80 years away. It’s hard for this generation, these kids don’t even know 9/11, they were not even born. For me this was his way to convey the message.’
Board member Tony Allman (left) suggested the book should at least be censored. ‘Why does the educational system promote this kind of stuff, it is not wise or healthy,’ he said
The 296-page book details the suicide of the author’s mother, who also survived Auschwitz. It depicts Nazis as cats and Jewish people as mice
Melasawn Knight, also an instructional supervisor, concurred.
‘People did hang from trees, people did commit suicide and people were killed, over six million were murdered,’ she said.
Allman was not swayed by the argument.
‘I am not denying it was horrible, brutal, and cruel. It’s like when you’re watching TV and a cuss word or nude scene comes on it would be the same movie without it. Well, this would be the same book without it,’ Allman said.
Cochran added: ‘So, my problem is, it looks like the entire curriculum is developed to normalize sexuality, normalize nudity and normalize vulgar language. If I was trying to indoctrinate somebody’s kids, this is how I would do it.’
McMinn County is a heavily conservative area in southeastern Tennessee. In the 2020 election, nearly 80 percent of votes went to Donald Trump.
Maus uses a frame-tale timeline in which Art Spiegelman, in New York City in 1978, interviews his father Vladek about his experiences during the Holocaust.
‘People did hang from trees, people did commit suicide and people were killed, over six million were murdered,’ said one instructional supervisor while defending the use of the book
Art’s mother Anja had also lived through the Nazi regime, but she killed herself when Spiegelman was 20, a story that is touched on in the book.
The novel won the Pulitzer in 1992 and has since been lauded for helping to usher in a new era of graphic novels, in which they were seen as a respectable form of adult media.
Author Neil Gaiman compared the school board members to Nazis in a tweet on Wednesday
‘I’m kind of baffled by this,’ Spiegelman told CNBC after learning of the ban. ‘It’s leaving me with my jaw open, like, “What?”‘
The decision drew outcry from British author Neil Gaiman, who compared the school board members to Nazis in a tweet on Wednesday.
‘There’s only one kind of people who would vote to ban Maus, whatever they are calling themselves these days,’ Gaiman said.
The Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, tweeted about the importance of the book on Wednesday, as news of the Tennessee school board’s decision traveled far beyond rural McMinn County.
‘Maus has played a vital role in educating about the Holocaust through sharing detailed and personal experiences of victims and survivors,’ the museum said.
‘Teaching about the Holocaust using books like Maus can inspire students to think critically about the past and their own roles and responsibilities today.’
The ban comes as parents and school boards across the country debate how to teach the history of racism at schools, if at all.
Last year, the Republican-controlled Tennessee General Assembly voted to withhold funding from schools that teach ‘critical race theory,’ effectively banning it, according to the Tennessean.
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