A Letter to NCAC About Conflicting Reports
Covering A Single Event

13 January 2003

National Coalition Against Censorship
275 Seventh Avenue
New York, NY 10001
ncac@ncac.org

Dear, NCAC.

I am writing on two separate matters, one of which is of relatively minor concern and ties in to your report of the challenge to Of Mice And Men in Censorship News Online issue #88. Regretably, Of Mice And Men seems to be one of the three first banned books of 2003 as well; along with Fallen Angels and The Things They Carried; both by Walter Myers. The Clarion-Ledger Mississippi News carried the story on the banning in its January 8th edition ( http://www.clarionledger.com/news/0301/08/m16.html).

My principal concern in writing to you however is about your coverage of the The Lords Of Discipline incident in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in November 2002. I track free speech issues and censorship efforts at my web site, so I researched this incident and came up with 51 hits at Google.com:
(http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q="lords+of+discipline"+++"green+bay"&btnG=Google+Search&meta= ).

I checked out the links to an article on the case by Kelley Bruss, and an opinion/editorial, both at Green Bay Press-Gazette. (The URLs for both pieces respectively are: http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/news/archive/local_7286392.shtml http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/news/archive/opinion_7299291.shtml).

Both the article and the op/ed are completely at variance with the article in your newsletter.

The principal points of difference are:

1: The Press-Gazette article and op/ed make no mention of specific criticisms of the book whereas your article reported it as being condemned as "literary pornography";

2: the Press-Gazette article and op/ed make no mention of participation by the students and the treatment they received as reported in your article;

3: the Press-Gazette article and op/ed shed a generally good light on Mr. Nerad's actions and the guidelines he implemented, presenting them as a review process, whereas your article paints the case in a uniformly negative light, including making it appear as if Mr. Nerad had implemented controls on student reading.

I am certain that you are aware of the differences between selection and censorship. Selection, of course, is based primarily on choosing material that is appropriate to the milieu in favour of material that is less so. And the determination is based on merit. In this case, Press-Gazette reported that The Lords Of Discipline was determined to be inappropriate to the 10th grade. The questions these differences raise in my mind are as follows.

1: Who said of the work that it is "literary pornography"? Was it described thusly in a formal complaint, by Mr. Nerad, or by a speaker at the 25 November meeting?

2: What considerations did Mr. Nerad take into account in deciding that the book was not appropriate to the 10th grade?

3: Why did you report the book as being banned rather than as being removed from the 10th grade curriculum, given that the work is still permitted on the 11th and 12th grade curricula?

4: Why did you report his guidelines as if they were part and parcel of an effort to suppress what books students are allowed to read?

5: Do you have any material you can share with me so I can research this case and these issues to a greater depth?

I endeavour at all times to refrain from reading too much into situations and horribly complicating matters, so I am currently of the opinion that the answer to question number four will prove to be that the article was hastily written and improperly edited. And while this might appear to be a matter of little consequence, the negative affective connotation it creates generates some very serious ramifications in that it threatens the credibility of the National Coalition Against Censorship.

I look forward to hearing from you about these issues.

Michael Nellis
XXXX XXXXXXX
St. Romuald QC
Canada G6W 2V8
(XXX) XXX-XXXX