Cedarville (AR) School Board

By any standard, author J. K. Rowling's series of Harry Potter novels have been an enormous success. Over 100 million copies of the books about the young wizard in training have been sold worldwide. The books have drawn accolades from critics and educators alike, who applaud the series' power to motivate young people to read. Indeed, the novels have been credited with creating a surge in reading by children.

Do not, however, count Angie Haney of Cedarville, Arkansas, as one of the millions of Harry Potter fans. In June 2002, Haney, a parent with two children in the Cedarville School District, filed a formal complaint asking that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone be removed from the school library. In her complaint, Haney decried the books as inappropriate for children, alleging that they promote a disregard for authority, and celebrate witchcraft and magic. Many would disagree with Haney's characterization of the novels, and there have been no reported incidents that support the conclusion that the novels cause disruptive behavior. Still, as required by school district policy, Haney's complaint was reviewed by the Cedarville Library Committee. The Committee, made up of parents, librarians, and students, voted 15-0 to keep the book on the district libraries' shelves where all children easily could access it. The Cedarville School Board ignored the committee's recommendation, however, and voted 3-2 to place all of the Harry Potter novels on restricted shelves. The decision left Harry Potter novels in Cedarville's school libraries, but only accessible to students with parental permission slips. Shortly thereafter, one of the parents on the library committee joined his wife and son in filing a lawsuit that accuses the school board of violating their First Amendment right to be free of government control over what they read. The case is pending in federal court in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

While a school board has wide authority in determining what books to remove from a school library, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the power does not include the authority to remove books "simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion." In the depositions of the Board members who voted to restrict access to the novels, little attempt was made to hide their personal dislike of anything to do with sorcery or witchcraft. More fundamentally, one has to question the judgment of a school board that disregards the unanimous recommendation of a library advisory committee in order to address the complaint of a lone parent. If such is the fate of the Harry Potter novels, how many other reputable works will be censored based on the objections of a vocal few, or one? For creating this dangerous precedent, a 2003 Jefferson Muzzle is awarded to the Cedarville (AR) School Board.