Popular Reading

• Removed by a Dorchester District 2 school board member in Summerville, SC (2001) because it "is a filthy, filthy book."
• Challenged in the Waterloo, IA schools (1992) and Duval County, FL public school libraries (1992) because of profanity, lurid passages about sex, and statements defamatory to minorities, God, women, and the disabled.
• In 1960, a teacher in Tulsa, OK was fired for assigning the book to an eleventh grade English class. The teacher appealed and was reinstated by the school board, but the book was removed from use in the school.

• Challenged at the Baptist College in Charleston, SC (1987) because of "language and sexual references in the book."

• Challenged in Burke County (2008) schools in Morganton, NC by parents concerned about the homosexuality, rape, and incest portrayed in the book.
• Challenged, along with seventeen other titles in the Fairfax County, VA elementary and secondary libraries (2002), by a group called Parents Against Bad Books in Schools. The group contends the books "contain profanity and descriptions of drug abuse, sexually explicit conduct, and torture.”
• Removed from the open shelves of the Newport News, VA school library (1986) because of its "profanity and sexual references" and placed in a special section accessible only to students over the age of 18 or who have written permission from a parent.

• Withdrawn from inclusion at the Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington, N.Y. (2000) because of a drawing of a homemade bomb.

• 2009- Stanislaus County school board banned this book because trustees and the superintendent believe "Bless Me, Ultima" contains too much profanity.

Speak has been repeatedly challenged and banned in certain schools. It has been referred to as “soft porn,” due to its content of rape. Wesley Scroggins, an associate college professor at Missouri State University wrote an opinion piece in the Springfield News-Leader and said that books like Speak should be hidden from students.

One of 7 books banned in a Long Island school in 1976 - the case went all the way to the Supreme Court . After the ruling all books were returned to the library.

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/31/nyregion/li-school-board-ends-its-fight-to-ban-books.html

• 2004 - Removed from the Louisiana College bookstore in Pineville (LA) by the college president because a love scene described in the book clashes with the school's Christian values.
• 2001 - Banned (later reinstated) in Savannah (GA) after protests about the book's sexual content, violence, and profanity.

• Pulled from the Meridian, Idaho, high school supplemental reading list (2014) after some parents complained that the novel “discusses masturbation, contains profanity, and has been viewed as anti-Christian.”
• Challenged at the Cedar Grove Middle School in Wilmington, N.C., (2014) because “the book contains numerous depictions of sexual behavior, as well as instances of racism, vulgar language, bullying, and violence.”

• 2009 - Challenged in the Ravenna (OH) schools because, " What we kept finding and going over was sexual content and profanity."