Medford School District book removal amounts to ‘censorship’, says state library association

In April, a graphic novel version of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian story The Handmaid’s Tale was pulled from the shelves of North Medford High School after a parent complained about images of nudity, sexual assault, and suicide.

JPR’s Erik Neumann spoke with Emily O’Neal, co-chair of the Oregon Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee about censorship and their investigation into the book’s removal.

Emily O’Neal: Unfortunately, we have not been able to get a lot of information from the Medford School District, which is, part of what is the concern. Typically, when a library – whether it’s a school library or a public library – experiences a challenge for materials, they have a policy that is well-posted and well-known on how they will look into the matter. Medford had a policy that was previously available and at some point over, we believe, the last school district that policy was taken down. So, we don’t actually know what process was gone through to remove the title.