Portage Public Schools librarians will explain their book selection and removal process at the board’s meeting next Monday. That’s after some people complained to the Board about the sexually explicit content in the 1996 novel Push by Sapphire. Librarians ultimately took the book out of circulation.
Michelle Karpinski is a spokeswoman for PPS. She said the school board does not get into deciding what books the schools have in their libraries.
In the case of Push, "the book came to the librarians' attention through the board meeting, but the process was not any different than would be used, you know, with any other book that might be old or outdated or worn,” Karpinski said.
She added that PPS librarians continuously review what’s in the libraries, but there are no plans for a blanket review.
Babli Sinha is a professor at Kalamazoo College and member of a new local group called Portage Linking our Voices. She said she's worried that new board members Kimberly Larson and Emily Crawford may push for more restrictions. When running for school board, their platforms included banning teaching critical race theory and ending the supposed sexualization of children in schools.
“My concern is that given their platform, their political platform when they were running for office, that their primary aim is to restrict students' access to books,” Sinha said.
“Nationally, most of the books that have been targeted for bans and restriction are books by authors of color or books by LGBT authors," she added. (That applies to Push, whose author is Black and bisexual.)
PPS librarians are scheduled to outline their selection process at the February 13 school board meeting.