Final Word on Vamos a Cuba

According to School Library Journal, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear arguments to overturn a decision by the Miami-Dade School District that took Vamos a Cuba off of public school library shelves. This means that the decision of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stands.

Opponents of the book described it as factually inaccurate because it "paints too rosy a picture of life in the communist nation."

The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week declined to take up the case of the controversial book by Alta Schreier, letting stand a 2–1 decision earlier this year by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that the school board's decision to remove the book was not censorship in violation of the First Amendment. Instead, the Atlanta-based appeals court said the school board was seeking to remove the book because it contained substantial factual inaccuracies. Vamos a Cuba is one of a series of books on various countries in the world written for children aged four to eight.

Muzzle Award

The 2007 Jefferson Muzzle Award was presented to a number of people and organizations in the US, including the Miami-Dade School Board for its banning of a children's book entitled "A Visit to Cuba" after a parent complained it showed the communist state in too positive a light.

The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression has awarded over one hundred and sixty Jefferson Muzzles in the past sixteen years. According to their web site:

Announced on or near April 13 — the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson — the Jefferson Muzzles are awarded as a means to draw national attention to abridgments of free speech and press and, at the same time, foster an appreciation for those tenets of the First Amendment.

Here is the full 2007 Muzzle Award List:

1. REP. PETER KING, R-N.Y., for advocating a criminal investigation of The New York Times after it reported on government surveillance of international financial transactions.

2. THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION, for broadening the scope of broadcast material that constitutes indecency and targeting profanity.

3. THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, for its surveillance of anti-war organizations.

4. THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION, for changing and censoring reports and studies of government scientists.

5. THE OHIO GENERAL ASSEMBLY, for passing a bill requiring state employees to sign a form declaring one has no ties to terrorist groups and gives no financial or material assistance to groups on the State Department's terrorist list.

6. KENTUCKY REPUBLICAN GOV. ERNIE FLETCHER, for blocking access to liberal-leaning Web sites from state-owned computers, while still permitting access to conservative sites.

7. MAINE'S BUREAU OF LIQUOR ENFORCEMENT, for banning the sale of three beers because of label illustrations.

8. THE EAST ST. LOUIS (ILL.) CITY COUNCIL, for forcing a public access show supportive of an incumbent mayor's political opponent off the air.

9. THE PHILADELPHIA HUMAN RELATIONS COMMISSION, for filing a discrimination complaint against a cheese steak shop owner after he posted a bumper sticker at his business that stated, "This is America: When ordering 'Speak English.' "

10. THE NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION, for its policy on school mascots and team logos.

11. THE CHARLES A. BEARD MEMORIAL SCHOOL BOARD IN KNIGHTSTOWN, IND., for expelling four students who created a video that featured evil stuffed animals' unsuccessful attempt to kill a teacher.

12. WATSON CHAPEL SCHOOL DISTRICT IN ARKANSAS, for suspending about 20 students who protested the district's dress code by wearing black armbands.

13. MIAMI-DADE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOL BOARD, for banning a children's book titled "A Visit to Cuba" after a parent complained it wasn't critical enough of the communist state.

14. TIE: BEN DAVIS HIGH SCHOOL IN INDIANAPOLIS, PRINCETON HIGH SCHOOL IN CINCINNATI AND WYOMING VALLEY WEST HIGH SCHOOL IN KINGSTON, PA., for censoring the content of high school publications.

Visit the archives for past years' Muzzle Award winners.

Cuban Raid on School Library and Making Books Disappear

Take the "Banned Book Challenge." Freedom to Read Week is next week.

The writers of Stuck on the Palmetto bring attention to a Miami Herald article that tells of how a Miami-Dade mother is refusing to return a school library book. Our web log has been following this story of a group of parents has been trying to remove books from school libraries that paint too rosy a picture of life in Cuba.

Dalila Rodriguez, a member of the Concerned Cuban Parents Committee, who checked out the books Discovering Cultures, Cuba and Vamos a Cuba from her son's school library has no plans to return them. Says Rodriguez, "It's not censoring; it's protecting our children from lies....We're going to take the books and lock them in a box."

I wonder if she got the idea from this parent who decided a Maurice Sendak book was obscene and decided to hang on to it to "make it disappear." Thanks to Bookshelves of Doom for this story as found in The Daily News, Murfreesboro, TN.

Update: Leonard Pitts Jr., winner of a Pulitzer Prize for commentary, and a columnist for the Miami Herald in an article in the Sacramento Bee tells readers he has shipped a copy of Discovering Cultures, Cuba to Bossard Elementary School, as has Friends of Cuban Libraries. Mr. Pitts promises to replace any copy that goes missing because of Dalila Rodriguez and her group.

Protecting the Children...from....?

The Miami-Dade School Board voted to continue their fight to remove a controversial children's book on Cuba from their libraries.

It has become a politically-charged issue and the timing puts it two week prior to the Sept. 5 elections.

While a judge rejected the Board's reason (that it presents a distorted view of life in Cuba, showing smiling children and omitting problems that life under a dictator present) for banning Vamos a Cuba and 23 other titles.

"The discussion around the issue of parental rights and the sovereign powers of elected officials and wise use of taxpayer dollars is an issue worth fighting all the way to the Supreme Court," said board member Frank Bolaños, who opposes the book. "This is a matter of principle -- it warrants us investing as much time and resources as we need to be able to protect these things we believe in."

"Do we have a right to protect our children?" continued Bolaños. "I think we have the right and responsibility to do that."

The board voted to remove the 32-page books in June 2006, with the reason that they oversimplify the foreign countries they portray. The books are aimed at a target audience of 5 to 7-year-olds. Since only the Cuba book was ever discussed in detail, the American Civil Liberties Union's lawsuit was launched on the premise that the ban was based on politics.

The district has already spent more than $123,000 to fight the case and has already budgeted another $127,000 for the appeal.

Here is a Question

Should a book be banned for what it doesn't say?

The Miami Herald doesn't think so.

A leaf from George Orwell's "1984?"

That is Joe Crankshaw's assessment of the Miami-Dade School Board's decision to remove "Vamos a Cuba" ("A Visit to Cuba") from their school district's libraries (along with 24 other titles depicting life in other countries).

Crankshaw identifies the anti-Castro political agenda that has cause the removal of this book and warns of the long-term consequences of this kind of thinking.

Now the battle against Castro is being waged on the field of ideas, and the methods being used mirror the straitjacket control of thought in Communist countries. In other words, the champions of democracy and free thought don't want it for any view but their own. The risk is they could become dictators just like Castro.

Yesterday, according to a Reuters report, a federal court judge the ban lifted. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit against the Miami-Dade School Board on June 21, 2006. The ACLU says this marks the first major battle over book censorship by a US public school system since 1982.

Lawyers for the ACLU do not dispute critics’ claims that the book, with its pictures of smiling children, fails to depict many aspects of life in Cuba. But they argued at a hearing in Judge Gold’s courtroom last Friday that the book and its content were appropriate for its target audience of children aged 5 to 7.

U.S. District Judge Alan S. Gold ordered the book returned to libraries until a final ruling is made. According to Gold,

The only books in contention in this case are library books, books that are by their nature optional rather than required reading. By totally banning the Cuba books and the rest of the series, the school board is in fact prohibiting even the voluntary consideration of the themes contained in the books by students at their leisure. This goes to the heart of the First Amendment issue.

The ACLU argued that the book ban violated the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech, and defied a US law prohibiting censorship.