JTA – A new Iowa state law banning sexual and gender identity instructions this week prompted a school district to briefly order school staff to remove the book Maus of Art Spiegelman and hundreds of other books from their shelves.
But days later, following national outrage, the district backtracked, releasing a slimmed down list of 65 books to be removed. Maus and several other Jewish-themed books that were on the first list were no longer there.
This rapid about-face in schools in Urbandale, a suburb of the city of Des Moines, is the latest example of books being classified as “inappropriate” in schools.
Jewish texts have thus already been targeted by this growing – confusing and often contradictory – national “parental rights” movement.
In Iowa and other states, this movement has promoted legislation targeting educators who present content that could be construed as sexual.
“We have determined that there is ambiguity in the designation of books containing topics related to gender identity and sexual orientation that should be removed from libraries,” District Superintendent Rosalie Daca wrote. in a note shared Thursday to staff that an Urbandale spokesperson passed on to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“As such,” the note continues, with emphasis in bold, “we will be suspending the removal of books referencing gender identity and sexual orientation until we receive guidance from the Department of Iowa Education”.
The memo followed another earlier this week in which, as reported by the Des Moines Registerinstructed staff to remove from their libraries more than 300 books in potential violation of the law, including Maus, God, are you there? It’s me Margaret de Judy Blume, le roman Sophie’s Choice about the Holocaust and Jewish author Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning adult play, Angels in America. That initial list drew an impassioned response from literary freedom of expression group PEN America, which implored the district not to act on those takedown requests.
Administrators faulted the state Department of Education for issuing vague and unclear guidelines on how to comply with the new law, which Republican Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed into law in May and is expected to go into effect in January 2024. The law states that it “prohibits teaching related to gender identity and sexual orientation in school districts” and also prohibits “any material containing descriptions or visual representations of a sexual act”.
It remains undetermined how Maus ended up on the initial list of books flagged for removal, or how the district’s decision not to touch books related to “gender identity and sexual orientation” resulted in a stay of execution for the book of Spiegelmann. Maus recounts the traumatic experiences of the author’s parents who survived the Holocaust, and does not contain any comments on gender or sexual identity. The only thing that can come close is a panel of a naked mouse representing Spiegelman’s mother after she died by suicide.
The same image previously angered a Tennessee school board, which pulled Maus of his district’s school curriculum last year, putting the book at the center of the national book ban debate. Districts in Missouri have also previously withdrawn or considered withdrawing Maus due to the wording of a new federal law prohibiting the distribution of explicit material.
Rosalie Daca’s memo noted that the Urbandale District established its initial list of books by eliminating “books listed in other states that had passed similar laws.” The district did not respond to questions about Maus.
Other Jewish books rescued from district-wide book removals include: The Fixer in South Carolina and The Diary of Anne Frank – Graphic Novel in Texas. However, other Florida districts have permanently removed this adaptation from the Journal by Anne Frank as well as a Holocaust novel by Jodi Picoult and a Purim picture book featuring a same-sex couple.
Jewish-themed book remains on Urbandale’s withdrawal list: The Novel call me by your name by André Aciman, which details the coming of age of a young LGBTQ Jew and is explicit in its depiction of sexual acts.
2023-08-06 11:47:41
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