Gardner Edgerton’s Board of Education voted Monday night to remove the book, “Jesus Land” by Julia Scheeres, the second time in roughly a year that the school board has removed a book from library shelves.
The board voted 5-2 to remove the book from the library at Gardner Edgerton High School, with board Members Katie Williams and Heath Freeman casting the “no” votes.
This vote comes a year after the board voted to remove “Lily and Dunkin,” a young adult novel by Donna Gephardt that features a transgender protagonist.
“Jesus Land” is a memoir by Julia Scheeres, a white woman who outlines her and her adopted Black brother’s experiences with racism and abuse growing up in rural Indiana in the 1980s.
Board President Tom Reddin, who voted to remove the book, compared it to another book recently reviewed and kept on school shelves. That book, “America” by E.R. Frank, details a boy’s experiences of abuse in the foster care system and then his recovery.
“When I read this book (“Jesus Land”), it was sexual obscenity from front to back,” Reddin said. “And she [the author] never got — the closest thing to help was her family sent her to an abusive boarding school. There was no counseling, no help. Her only outcome was she turned 18 and went to college.”
For Williams, who voted against removing the book, the story hit close to home.
“When I was a kid, growing up, I was not allowed to go to the public library because there was content there that my parents did not approve of and did not want me to read,” Williams said. “They believed they were protecting me and sheltering me. As someone who experienced very similar situations as Julia in this book, I was not sheltered from experiencing that type of abuse.
“I was sheltered from having the language and the knowledge that I was being harmed and to know that I could ask for help,” she added. “I was sheltered from knowing that it was not my fault. That’s why I think that this book is important, not as required reading, but as something everybody should be able to read if they choose.”
Outgoing board member Greg Chapman, who was defeated in the Nov. 4 election, followed up on Williams’ comments:
“My vote is absolutely going to be to remove the book,” he said. “We have approved numerous other books that do exactly what you’re saying with not nearly as much graphic content as this book.”
“Jesus Land” was not sent to committee for review
The Gardner Edgerton school board’s current book review policy says all materials related to a book under review shall be sent to a special committee composed of two subject area specialists, two community members and one student.
That committee, according to the policy, should then provide a recommendation to the board, which will take a final vote on whether a book should be removed.
No such committee appears to have been formed for this review of “Jesus Land.”
The school board last updated its book review policy in May. Here’s a link to that policy.
School district officials at a meeting last month noted that a single unnamed individual requested a review of “Jesus Land” sometime prior to the book review policy being updated in May.
At that same meeting, Superintendent Brian Huff said “Jesus Land” had gone through a first review, and he himself read it and decided to keep it on the shelves at Gardner Edgerton High’s library.
The same unnamed person who requested “Jesus Land” the first time asked the board to review the book again this fall. In November, the board voted to review the book, setting up Monday’s vote.
High school librarian objected to book’s removal
The school board’s decision to remove “Lily and Dunkin” last year faced widespread pushback from the public, with dozens of people speaking at a January board meeting against the choice to remove it.
One person argued at Monday night’s meeting against the removal of the book: Gardner Edgerton High School librarian Beth Bird.
“Your decision is in direct violation of your own board policy that you approved and passed,” Bird said during public comment. “Once a decision has been made regarding a title, it is a final decision. This action creates an exception to the current book review policy that now opens up any book challenge that has been finalized to new review. This will create a mess of re-evaluation of the same titles simply because someone does not like the outcome of that review.”
Keith Davenport, who defeated Chapman on Nov. 4 but will not take office next month after moving out of the board member area, also decried the board’s decision in an email Tuesday morning, saying the board broke multiple district policies.
“First, board rules clearly state that a book may not be reviewed a second time — yet this title had already undergone a full review and was retained,” Davenport wrote. “Second, the policy restricts challenges to required curriculum, not voluntary library materials. Third, the board bypassed the professional review committee entirely, denying educators, librarians, and parents the role our policy guarantees them.”
Reaffirming his vote against removing “Jesus Land” from the shelves, Freeman emphasized his trust in the staff, teachers and most of all, parents.
“I trust our parents to make decisions for their children,” Freeman said. “This is a parental-level decision. I reached out to Beth Bird (high school librarian) today. I said, ‘Beth, how many parents have come to you and asked for this book to be screened from their child, for them to be prohibited from having access to this material?’ The answer to that was zero.”
