Federal appeals court allows 'Huck Finn' to remain on school's reading list
The Associated Press
10.20.98
SAN FRANCISCO — The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn may offend some current racial attitudes — in fact, it's the most banned book in the United States — but judges shouldn't join the censors, says a federal appeals court.
In a 3-0 ruling yesterday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reinstate a black woman's lawsuit seeking to remove the Mark Twain classic and a William Faulkner story from the required-reading list at her daughter's Arizona high school.
The court acknowledged that words can wound, but said a book approved by school officials for its educational value does not violate federal civil rights laws.
Courts cannot "ban books or other literary works from school curricula on the basis of their content ... even when the works are accused of being racist," said the opinion by Judge Stephen Reinhardt.
"It is simply not the role of courts to serve as literary censors or to make judgments as to whether reading particular books does students more harm than good."
The court allowed the parent, Kathy Monteiro, to sue the Tempe Union High School District for allegedly failing to respond to complaints that white students were harassing blacks with racial slurs and graffiti. But the judges said the school could not be required to remove the books as a way to reduce harassment.
"We view with considerable skepticism charges that reading books causes evil conduct," Reinhardt said.
Monteiro's lawyer, Stephen Montoya, said the ruling was a victory overall, because the court agreed that a school district cannot knowingly allow a racially hostile environment to persist. But he disagreed with the court's response to the complaint about books.
"I don't believe that a public school has the right to force an African-American student to read a text that denigrates African Americans," Montoya said. "I don't believe books should be banned but I don't believe students should be forced to read them. I believe there is a First Amendment right not to read."
The school district's lawyer, Allison Lewis, was unavailable for comment and a telephone call to the superintendent's office was not returned.
Monteiro, who teaches elementary school in nearby Phoenix, is the mother of Raquel Paton, now a senior at McClintock High School. When she was a 13-year-old ninth-grader, the required-reading list in her freshman English class included Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Faulkner's A Rose for Emily.
Both works repeatedly use the word "nigger." The only option for a student who objected to the books was to study alone in the library while they were being discussed, the suit said.
The suit said the assignment of the books discriminated against black students, created a racially hostile environment and caused an increase in harassment. It sought damages and removal of the books from the required list.
U.S. District Judge Stephen McNamee dismissed the suit in January 1997, saying he was aware that the language in the books was offensive and hurtful to Paton but did not find their assignment discriminatory.
In yesterday's ruling, the appeals court said a student's constitutional rights are violated when a book that has educational value, as determined by the school district, is removed from a required-reading list by threat of a lawsuit.
Allowing such suits to proceed "could have a significant chilling effect on a school district's willingness to assign books with themes, characters, snippets of dialogue, or words that might offend the sensibilities of any number of persons or groups" — a description that fits most literature, Reinhardt said.
Judge Dorothy Nelson joined Reinhardt's opinion. Judge Robert Boochever, in a separate opinion, said the case might be different if a school assigned books with "overt messages of racial hatred" that teachers failed to discuss.
The case is Monteiro v. Tempe Union High School District, 97-15511.