TULSA, Okla. — During a politically divided time in Oklahoma schools, the week-long University of Tulsa-sponsored festival Switchyard calls to attention many books of the past and present that have been challenged, censored, or banned.
"That creates cohesion of the ugliest kind, and that's this widespread book-banning," Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novelist Art Spiegelman said during a talk at the first night of Switchyard Tuesday night.
Spiegelman's 1991 Holocaust-based graphic novel Maus was banned by a Tennessee school district last year.
"At the point that you say, 'Because that's contrary to my beliefs, it shouldn't be available to any kid. It shouldn't be available in a public library,' to me that is crossing a line, and one that we think impinges on other people's freedoms," Switchyard Magazine editor and event co-founder Ted Genoways told 2 News.
Genoways said Tulsa is the perfect setting for spotlighting books being debated by school boards across the nation.
"I thought it was one of the things that we needed to address," he said. "And one of the things that is unique about the University of Tulsa being a private institution is that it doesn't feel the same pressures some of the public institutions that are really under pressure from state entities do."
The talks strike a chord with Oklahoma Equality Center's Librarian Michelle Simmons.
"It would be good to have positive influences, positive things in literature that are like that, not these other words that are being used, and (children will believe they) have potential and promise," Simmons said.
"Other words" have been used by Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters, who referred to multiple books previously available in public schools as "pornographic."
TU Provost George Justice disagrees.
"Well I've got an 11th grader at booker T. Washington High School," Justice said.
"He's reading controversial texts. I applaud that. I want our young people to think for themselves. I hope that this is an event that makes people think for themselves. Think for themselves by reading, by listening, by talking."
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