'Hurtful' Harper Lee and Mark Twain Dropped from Minnesota Curriculum

Are they going to drop shakespeare or his works next because of the racist antisemitic language in his works?

When does it end? There are offensive language in almost every work of literature? Of Mice and Men? Scarlett Letter? Catcher in the Rye? Do we shelve them all?

Although it stinks it is only one school district in Minnesota (Duluth) and the books will remain in their library.

The reasoning (due to racially insensitive language) is nonsense but there are plenty of books in American literature that could be used just as effectively.

I'm hoping that the teachers in Duluth encourage the students to read the books on their own time.

I live in Italy and sincerely hope they are not going to ban Dante's Comedy from school because of its anti-Muslim stanzas! Authors should always be contextualized within the age and place where they lived and created their works.

However, what strikes me the most is the fact they consider literary works interchangeable. It's like of they said, «we are not going to read this book, because the same message can be found in this other book, which uses a more appropriate vocabulary». But the artistic merit of a book does not lie in its anti-racist message alone. There are countless things which make a work a masterpiece: the use of language, the development of the characters, the way things and situations are described...

At least you can be pretty sure waaayy more teenagers in that school district are going to read that book now that it's been banned.

There are plenty of uncomfortable topics that gets glossed over in high school. Censoring these books at the high school age is great.