The editorial of the current issue of American Libraries is about “Extraordinary Heroes.” One of the eight mentioned was “Superintendent Elliott Landon, who retained Alice Siebold’s coming-of-age novel The Lovely Bones in the Coleytown Middle School Library in Westport, Connecticut, despite objections from a parent that it was not age-appropriate.” This ALA note even gives the justification for retaining the book: kids want it and it “had been mentioned favorably on three lists used for middle school collection development.”
This incident made me thinking about the motivation for doing the right thing. People do it out of their principles. But it also might feel nice being vindicated and externally validated by being recognized for doing it. Hence the magazine mention must feel good to Landon and may encourage others to stand up where that is needed.
On the other hand when I Googled the superintendent’s name I mostly found references to a newer case, where he is purported as being squashing free speech. That case is about a teacher who believes that “school officials [namely Landon] ‘refused’ to allow her to transfer to another teaching post because she exercised her First Amendment rights to speak out.” I read through this report and the case is too murky for me to be able to tell who is right.
Because Landon proved once already that he is a free speech advocate I am tended to be on his side. It doesn’t matter though. My point is that people and circumstances can change and we can find ourselves at either end of intellectual freedom issues any time.
This entry is part of my Intellectual Freedom series.