JOSEPH N. BELL -- The Bell Curve

While I was out trying to refinance the house so I could pay my

electric bill, a really scary thing happened. I found myself on the same

philosophical page as Wendy Leece.

Makes a guy stop and rethink his position. But no matter how many

times I went over the decision of the Newport-Mesa Unified school board

to continue its policy of zero tolerance -- plus an additional stand

against bullies that Leece opposed -- it got more and more murky.

Over the past weeks, the school board has been dealing with three

separate issues that, because of the strong feelings surrounding them,

are not going to go away. I’m talking about the effort to eliminate two

books from the reading curriculum at Newport Harbor High School, the

policy of instant, draconian measures against students who violate an

inflexible and ill-defined set of rules, and the expectation that a

behavior as vague as bullying can somehow be defined and turned around by

the school board adopting a written policy against it.

All of these recurring problems need to be addressed rationally rather

than emotionally. I’m not at all sure that is taking place. So let me at

least take a shot at it -- with the reading issue first.

This has been worked over at great length in letters published in the

Pilot. Most have been both heated and articulate. But two arguments have

emerged repeatedly in the writings of those defending Leece that need to

be dealt with directly because they will continue to be made.

The first is the emphasis on nomenclature. For some reason, the Leece

side appears to be hung up on the word “censorship.” By insisting that

she has unfairly been labeled a censor, they are able to avoid dealing

with the real issues.

To put it as simply and directly as I know how, what Leece and her

fellow trustee David Brooks attempted unsuccessfully to do was remove two

books they found personally objectionable from the reading list of an

honors English class at Harbor High on the grounds that they were

inappropriate for high school students.

I looked up “censor” in the dictionary, which defined it as “one who

acts as an overseer of morals and conduct; an official empowered to

examine written or printed matter . . . in order to forbid publication if

objectionable.” You can make your own decision as to whether Leece’s

effort comprises censorship. But, to me, such nit-picking is irrelevant.

The action, not the label, is what needs to be debated.

The other argument is that these books in question could be purchased

or checked out at the public library by those who wish to read them

outside the school curriculum. This argument simply ignores the reason

the books were selected in the first place.

The list on which the books appear was a carefully crafted, integral

part of the English honors program taught by Martha Topik. They weren’t

frivolous throwaways to be picked up during next summer’s reading. My

stepson, Erik, took this class when he was at Harbor High, and I saw

firsthand the care and creative professionalism that went into its

teaching. When Erik picks up his Tony award for playwriting -- as I’m

sure he will a few years down the road -- I wouldn’t be surprised if

Topik is one of the people he thanks.

Finally, there is the argument that is totally ignored by those who

defend Leece’s position: that while allegedly protecting the minority of

students whose parents are offended by these books, she would be

preventing the majority from dealing with them in the context of an

honors curriculum.

The Newport-Mesa school system not only makes it easy for parents who

object to certain books to withdraw their children from reading them, it

makes it necessary for parents who want their children exposed to those

books to say so. This seems to me to go the absolute last mile in

protecting the options of the minority of parents and students who prefer

to avoid exposure to what they deem objectionable books.

This argument gets to the heart of the difficulty so many of us have

with people who would not only restrict their own children to such

exposure but would insist that their views be laid on all children,

including those whose parents have a totally different frame of

reference. This position grows out of the absolute certainty that there

is a right and a wrong in such matters and that their views reflect the

only right and must therefore be imposed on the rest of us.

There is a great danger in any society that people who don’t address

every human equation with such absolute conviction will finally lose

fights in the public arena by exhaustion and default. The letters in the

Pilot suggest that the book issue is happily one that local parents who

encourage their children to read broadly and want such books to be part

of the school curriculum are not going to take lightly.

Zero tolerance is a whole different ball game, and we’ll get into that

one next week.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.