The committee formed to review the novel “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas decided to deny a formal complaint to remove or change the use of the book in Elmira High School’s curriculum.
“The Hate U Give,” a fictional teen novel about police violence, has been the center of controversy across the nation, as well as in the Veneta-Elmira community.
Kristie Kilcullen, a parent and community member, and other parents in the community have raised concerns at monthly school board meetings.
The Fern Ridge school board followed district policy IIA-AR for forming a committee and additional processes to review complaints for instructional materials.
The committee gathered to review “The Hate U Give” consisted of: EHS English teacher Emmy Erwin, Lane ESD licensed media specialist Beth Clarke, EHS Principal Cydney Vandercar, community members April Cooper and Jason Alansky, and EHS sophomores Jake VanDamme and Rylee Rice.
VanDamme and Rice were elected to the committee by the Leadership class, the high school’s student government. The two students each sought to gain the perspectives and opinions of their classmates who had read the book in class.
VanDamme said he wanted to keep in mind the perspective of students not in favor of the book, as well as what supplementary material that students who opted-out would have to do.
“I wanted to make sure that if kids decide to opt-out that the assignments they have to do is equal and not more or less rigorous than the kids in class reading the book,” he told Falcon News.
Following the committee hearing process, VanDamme voted in support of keeping the book.
“I came to this decision based on my opinion that this book has a good story to tell,” he said. “That story being that the hate everyone gives each other makes the world a worse place.”
A common complaint and argument to remove the novel has been its use of language, such as its frequency of cursing and some use of the N-word. Rice observed the language used by students in school in comparison to the book.
“I heard the N-word in one day over double than what was in the book,” Rice told Falcon News.
The EHS sophomore explained her decision to vote in favor of keeping the book in class.
“There are choices in the book that maybe we don’t have to make daily,” she said, “but there are choices that we as students make — we as teenagers make — that relate to the book because [the main character] is a teenage girl.”
The decision to retain the book was announced at the school board meeting on Dec. 18 after the committee met a week prior.
An appeal can be made for the board to further review challenged instructional materials, as described in the district policy.
Board member Lisa McCann made a complaint during the board meeting, raising concern over the selection of a “balanced board,” believing that the members chosen were biased in favor of keeping the book.
“As long as it was a balanced board, I would have been totally fine,” McCann said during the meeting.
“A balanced board I would consider to be 4-3,” she continued, referencing the number of members on the committee “for” and “against” the book.
Superintendent Gary Carpenter explained that they had followed the board policy for selecting members to the committee. He explained that it would be more biased to know how members would vote before the meeting.
“[It] would seem inappropriate for me to ask them their opinion ahead of putting them on a committee,” Carpenter told McCann. “Then it might influence [a member’s] opinion.”
McCann had the opportunity to vote against the approval of the members for the committee but had not done so.
Falcon News reached out to English teacher Shannon Hart, whose class was reading the challenged book, for comment.
Hart described that he looks to make a small change next year by notifying parents before the class starts reading the book as a small reminder. Previously, the use of the book was mentioned only in the syllabus for the class that parents are required to sign.
Hart explained that he has received some suggestions to make the book a part of the course that students “opt-in” for, but he doesn’t believe that it is a feasible change to make.
“The last two years I’ve taught the book I’ve had five people opt-out total, out of 150 students,” the English teacher told Falcon News. “To me, that’s not enough to make a huge, wholesale change on anything.”
Hart continues to include a post-reading survey for students after each book in the course has been read. For “The Hate U Give,” responses to the survey are overwhelmingly positive.
Hart said he hopes the committee’s decision to retain the novel puts the challenge to rest, but he worries that future challenges may be on their way for “The Hate U Give,” as well as other books at EHS.
“Any book being challenged is a threat to all the books that we teach and use,” he explained. “I don’t want to see any books completely banned or taken away. I much prefer people to have access to literature and to knowledge.
“It takes a lot of time to combat this stuff — time and energy I could be using to teach.”
