The entire thing is just used as a wedge for everyone with an angle, and the left really does love taking this kind of bait and turning into a thing when it is, in fact, not that thing... however...
Maus, to my mind, seems like it would be a fantastic teaching aid for 8th graders... and having the school board vote on removing it from the curriculum is a bad idea. Not because they shouldn't be allowed to make top down changes to the curriculum but because the reasoning is based on their poorly researched understanding of the book, their limited and often wrong understanding of copyright, and the fact that it has 8 objectionable words and 1 objectionable image. Not to mention it was likely precipitated by some breathless parent who -would- ban the book entirely if it were up to them.
Like, if you read the meeting notes from when it was removed, it's clear this school board is utterly unqualified as a body to make these decisions (At one point one member says
"I may be wrong, but this guy that created the artwork used to do the graphics for Playboy. You can look at his history, and we’re letting him do graphics in books for students in elementary school. If I had a child in the eighth grade, this ain’t happening") It's basically what you would expect from a Kyuuji summit if instead of a hyper-reactionary group of trans instigators it was a hyper-reactionary group of barely literate Protestants.
They are clearly much more concerned with appeasing the few parents who complained without running afoul of their extremely limited understanding of copyright than having a good teaching aid available for teachers and students. It all came down to 8 words and 1 picture that were found to be objectionable.
It is also clear, from reading the notes, that "removing it from the curriculum" means not only is Maus not being made available to the students but the entire "holocaust" part of the Language Arts curriculum is likely going to have to be removed temporarily.
Jonathan Pierce- I believe I heard Ms. Knight say a moment ago that there’s not a book that can replace this one.
Steven Brady- Not without redoing this whole module.
and
Rob Shamblin- At that point if it’s been removed, it could be added back if there is no better alternative, I assume? I don’t know what it’s going to take to find an alternative.
Sharon Brown- It would probably mean we would have to move on to another module, they would know better than I on that.
Illustrates that they're well aware of the larger implication of removing Maus, even after a detailed explanation from ELA supervisors for why Maus in particular was chosen as part of the curriculum.
By removing Maus from the curriculum they have removed the module on the holocaust from the Language Arts curriculum at least for this year. I mean, we can all sit here and mince words about the difference between "banned" and "removed from the curriculum" but at the end of the day the effect is much more than just "8th graders at a middle school in Tennessee won't learn about ELA through the lens Maus". In all of this context, what effectively is the difference between "removed from the curriculum" and "banned"?
https://core-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/1818370/Called_Meeting_Minutes_1-10-22.pdfEDIT: I should also note that while their statement claims the depictions of violence and suicide were considered as part of the decision to remove Maus, the minutes show that the actual consideration was much more focused on the naughty words.
Also, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the left hasn't blown the issue out of proportion, but the effort to try and paint the left as over-reactionary has caused some commentators to imply that the removal of Maus is functionally less than a ban even if the language does not explicitly ban it.
