Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. board members unanimously voted Monday night to uphold a review committee’s decision to keep a challenged book in the Columbus East High School media center.
The vote came after a motion by board member Logan Schulz, District 6, to amend the wording of the committee’s findings did not receive a majority vote from the seven-person body and did not pass.
The challenged book was “Push,” a 1996 novel by author Sapphire, which was later made into the 2009 film “Precious.”
The request for review of the book was submitted by local resident Mark Niemoeller who reiterated that he believes the state standard for determining whether a book is “obscene” or “harmful” is not sufficient.
“My complaint is only that “Push’s” large amount of extremely profane and vulgar descriptions of sex acts, organs and situations is not changed by a good overall message,” Niemoller said during public comment. “… This position is based on the most fundamental standards of our community. While the book does not violate the law, it clearly violates community standards.”
A description of the book on the author’s website reads, “Precious Jones, an illiterate 16-year-old, has up until now been invisible to the father who rapes her and the mother who batters her and to the authorities who dismiss her as just one more of Harlem’s casualties. But when Precious, pregnant with a second child by her father, meets a determined and radical teacher, we follow her on a journey of education and enlightenment as she learns not only how to write about her life, but how to make it truly her own for the first time.”
Since Niemoller’s appeal of the committee’s decision began during the school board meeting on July 15, several members of the public have spoken out against the litigation and attempted removal of certain library books, but Niemoller was the only person from the public to speak on the matter during Monday’s school board meeting.
Schulz made a motion to amend the conclusion portion of the committee’s report so that it said that the book may remain on the shelves and be available “with parental consent,” something that Schulz has repeatedly brought up in the past but has not received the requisite support from other board members to make it district policy.
Schulz introduced a policy draft last fall that would have classified certain titles as “controversial” and required parental permission for students to access them.
The conclusion of the committee’s report, which Schulz wanted to amend, reads as follows:
“After reviewing this matter, the Board concludes that Push by Sapphire is not “obscene” or “harmful to minors” as the terms are defined in Indiana Code. The decision of the evaluation committee is upheld and the book may remain on the shelves of the Columbus East High School Media Center.”
“I have a motion to amend line item E to where it changes it from providing general access of the book ‘Push’ to access requiring parental consent prior to,” Schulz said.
Board President Nikki Wheeldon, District 7, then deferred to BCSC Attorney Michael McIver about how to proceed.
“You are obligated by your policy to make a determination on the book challenge. So I want to be clear what, Mr. Schulz, your amendment is,” McIver said.
“So the last line says that the book shall remain on the shelf. That is being recommended to be amended to requiring parental consent prior to access. Something to that effect,” Schulz responded.
That motion received two votes in favor — one from Schulz and another from District 1 board member Jason Major. After, the motion to uphold the committee’s findings as they were originally written was approved 7-0.
“I want to make sure it’s clear no one is recommending the term banning books or removing books from the library. The argument and the discussion here, which has been a gap on the political rhetoric, is whether or not the parent has the ability to consent prior to the general access. I think it’s really important that we lower the temperature of this concern,” according to Schulz, going on to say that “although the book has a great message,” he objected to the use of “nearly 400 obscenities and vulgarities” and “several accounts of detailed sexual abuse and child rape, which I don’t find appropriate.”
“Really the question here is, are the parents going to be afforded the ability for consent prior to this adult content reaching their children?” Schulz asked.
The book had been checked out 15 times since 2009, according to Major. Another copy of the book at East, which was purchased in 2010 and lost in 2015, had been checked out 14 times.
Before board members voted, the proceedings were interrupted by Eric Grow, who unsuccessfully ran for school board in 2022 for the District 4 seat.
“I would ask if we could do a roll call vote on something so important,” Grow said. Besides Grow, a woman who attended the meeting stated that “we’ll write down the names” of how members voted.
Major, Grow, Schulz and Roy West called themselves “Dads 4 Change” during the election cycle in 2022 and campaigned together based on similar views.
This is the second time the process for removing a book from a BCSC library has played itself out following Major’s unsuccessful effort to remove “People Kill People” by author Ellen Hopkins earlier this year.
Board members voted 5-1 on March 4 to keep the book in the library at Columbus East. Schulz was the lone vote to remove the book after Major recused himself. At the time, Schulz disputed what his vote meant and indicated that he actually wished not to remove the book, but wanted to require that parental consent be given to check out. However, back then he did not make a similar motion for an amendment as he did on Monday night.
The Republic reached out to BCSC to inquire about whether Schulz’s motion, had it been passed, would have meant that “Push” would require parental consent to be checked out and how that would work.
“If the amendment was approved, BCSC would most likely develop a process and a parent permission slip for the challenged book,” BCSC Communications Coordinator Josh Burnett said in a statement.
Major, for his part, said that he “probably had a slightly different count of bad words” than Schulz before reading an explicit passage from the book aloud.
“I’m shaking reading that, and as far as I’m concerned—I’m sure you understand how I’m going to vote on this—this should be something that a parent can give approval to their child to read,” Major said. “… I don’t understand this. I don’t understand why it’s necessary to tell a story. I think there’s so many ways to tell a story, and I would challenge any real doctor to come in here and say that we fight trauma with reintroduction to trauma.”
But, BCSC administration officials say that they already have a process in place if parents are concerned about their child having access to certain library materials, which board member Rich Stenner, District 2, asked about.
“If a parent is concerned about a book, or a child having access to it, or even a style of book that addresses certain topics, under the current system — what do they do?” he asked.
“With any concern, including one like this, the one you described, the step we always request parents take is reach out to the child’s teacher first and then the building administration, or person closest to the issue,” according to BCSC Superintendent Chad Phillips. “If it was a library, look at either a librarian or media center specialist. So, contacting the school and making a request that their student not have access to the work.”
“Are you aware of teachers or librarians not being willing to do that?” Stenner asked Phillips.
“No,” he said.
Other board members to speak about the book determination included board member Todd Grimes, District 3, Dale Nowlin, District 4, and Pat Bryant, District 5, who all said the book should stay.
Grimes said that he read the book in its entirety twice “in an honest effort to understand both sides of the issue of which I think both sides have very valid points.”
“I’m not sure anybody could argue that parts of the book’s contents aren’t extremely graphic, horrifying and raw as they describe the sexual, physical, emotional abuse that the book’s main character, Precious, had to endure,” Grimes said. “I can tell you, after 34 years in education, most of those spent working with kids that would be considered at risk, I have heard remarkably similar, or believe it or not, even worse stories than that depicted in ‘Push.’ ”
“‘Push’ isn’t just a book that describes, often in very vivid detail, the atrocities that Precious had to endure, it’s most importantly, at least in my opinion, a book about hope. It’s a book about a girl coming to realize what happened to her was not her fault. It’s a book about a girl realizing she’s not alone in the world,” Grimes said “… It’s a book about resiliency, connection and the incredible power of positive relationships. And lastly, I’ll just say it again, I believe it’s a book about hope, and it’s my hope for those that have endured terrible distresses similar to that as Precious in the book, that if they might happen to read the book, that they can realize that they’re not alone.”
Nowlin said “that whether the book be removed from the shelf or whether we somehow label it as controversial” he was concerned about the effect identifying a book as controversial would have.
“If we remove it or we label it, somehow a controversial book, that sends the message to them that their stories and their experiences— there’s something wrong with them,” Nowlin said. “… The other students that I think it’s important for is students who have never experienced that. As difficult as it is to read, I hope that one thing our students get out of their BCSC experience is empathy for others that have experienced things that they have not experienced, and that’s one of the things I got on this book.”
Bryant added that he believed the book “is not going to poison a person’s mind.”
Hearings on challenged books
The BCSC board was required to determine whether “Push” was “obscene” or “harmful to minors as defined by Indiana law.
The law defines that as:
(1) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, finds that the dominant theme of the matter or performance, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest in sex;
(2) the matter or performance depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct; and
(3) the matter or performance, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
On the other hand, material is harmful to minors if:
(1) it describes or represents, in any form, nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sado-masochistic abuse;
(2) considered as a whole, it appeals to the prurient interest in sex of minors;
(3) it is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable matter for or performance before minors; and
(4) considered as a whole, it lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.
