mukilteo school district makes international news
by Chaitna Deshmukh, Reporter
Opinion
In a recent decision, the Mukilteo School Board ruled unanimously to remove To Kill A Mockingbird from the 9th grade required reading list. This decision made widespread news, from our local Mukilteo Beacon and Everett Herald to national news in the New York Times, and even internationally, in The Independent in the UK.
This decision does not remove the novel from school libraries, nor does it disallow teachers from requiring students to read it in their classrooms; it simply means that 9th-grade teachers do not have to teach the novel to their students.
This discussion received a lot of scrutiny even before the decision was made, mostly from local news outlets. The school board meeting at which the decision was made was very widely attended, with fifteen speakers making their case to the board before the vote. Almost all speakers— staff, students, and community members— advocated for the removal of the novel, but a few argued in opposition. Although some members of the school board seemed skeptical of removal in their initial statements during this meeting, it seems the statements, many of them by impassioned and emotional students, had a significant impact: the Board voted unanimously in agreement with the Instructional Materials Committee (IMC), to remove To Kill a Mockingbird from the required reading list. For incoming freshmen, this means that moving forward, other novels may be used instead.
I was one of the students who advocated for the removal of To Kill a Mockingbird from the required list. When I wrote my remarks in the days leading up to the meeting, I agreed with the IMC’s decision; To Kill a Mockingbird should not be a required 9th-grade curriculum, but could be part of it. However, as I listened to my fellow student speakers, the majority of them Black students, I became even more in favor of its removal. The vivid descriptions of how the language used in the novel enabled other students to harass and bully Black students with racial slurs were chilling. Some accounts were even from anonymous students, afraid of retribution if they were to share their names.
The IMC and School Board’s decision, while a step in the right direction, only allows teachers to opt out from teaching the book, for whatever reason they choose: discomfort with the language and content, or dissatisfaction with how it addresses racism. The decision does little to protect the population most vulnerable to racial harassment, Black students, who are often made uncomfortable and hurt by the usage of slurs and other offensive language contained within the book. If a teacher decides that they will teach the novel, and even that they or the class will say the slurs out loud, it is entirely their prerogative, and students have little choice but to participate.
Until IMC and the School Board’s direction changes, we must hope that Kamiak’s teachers will deeply consider the impact on students before choosing to teach this book. Change does not always happen as fast or quite as we hope it will, but I believe this decision will alter Kamiak for the better, and continue to encourage discussion and further progress.
DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the various authors in this paper do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of Kamiak High School or The Gauntlet.