by Sarah Lane
A book removed by Miami-Dade County Public Schools board members in a 6-3 decision is, well, still removed from bookshelves after a federal appeals court turned down a challenge to the ban spearheaded by the ACLU. The book, Vamos a Cuba and the English translation A Visit to Cuba (published 2001), presents a positive view of life in contemporary Cuba. A parent in the school system who had spent time as a political prisoner in Cuba complained about the book. The board responded in 2006 in by removing it districtwide.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 vote argued that the removal of the book did not violate the First Amendment. However, the dissenting judge, Charles R. Wilson, wrote that the book ban was “an offense.” And Deborah Caldwell-Stone, who is deputy director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, promised to continue to support the ACLU in their efforts to overturn the ban.

In 2006, a U.S. District Court placed an injunction on the ban. This latest ruling effectively overturns that injunction and gives the go ahead to the ban of the book. In 117 pages, the federal court argued that the book, which is 32 pages long and written for children ages 4 to 8, can legally be banned since the decision by the school board was not motivated by political views but out of concern for the book’s inaccuracies. In its decision, the court effectively overlooked the findings of a school committee and a district committee of professional educators whose task it is to evaluate books. The  committees decided 7 to 1 and 15 to 1 to retain the book.

Judge Wilson argued that the school board’s criticism of the inaccuracies of the book, which is part of a “superficial geography series,” was ”a pretense for viewpoint suppression.” Judge Ed Carnes, who wrote the majority opinion, argued that the term book banning should not apply to a school district’s decision “not to continue possessing the book on its own library shelves.”

©2009 ProgressiveKid

Image by Alberto Perez.

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