Wow. Ignorance abounds, even in ‘liberal’ New England:
Students at New Rochelle School High School are going to find it difficult to complete their next assignment: comparing the film adaptation of “Girl, Interrupted” to the best-selling book
. In the book, Kaysen recounts her confinement at a Massachussets mental hospital in the 1960′s.”
And why is that?
Pages from the middle of the book have been torn out by the school district after having been deemed “inappropriate” by school officials due to sexual content and strong language.
“The material was of a sexual nature that we deemed inappropriate for teachers to present to their students,” said English Department Chariperson Leslie Altschul, “since the book has other redeeming features, we took the liberty of bowdlerizing.”
Sources at the school says that after receiving complaints from an as yet-to-be-identified person or group, the school district ordered students to return the book to the chairperson of the English department who then personally tore out pages 64 through 70 before returning the books to students. Ironically, news of the school censorship first broke during the same week as the school district’s annual Literary Festival.”
And to think that people are paying for this, since it is a public school. Heinlein was quite right: The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.