"We appreciate individuals who have reached out to us to share their concerns, but it is simply not true that ‘1984' has been banned at Rigby High School," Lisa Sherick, the Jefferson School District superintendent, said in a statement Tuesday. "What is true: parent complaints were received."
The school was previously considering a ban on the dystopian novel after a few parents complained about a violent, sexually-charged passage in which Winston, the novel's protagonist, is aroused but is frustrated because physical love is forbidden in the book's setting.
The passage reads:
"Suddenly, by the sort of violent effort with which one wrenches one's head away from the pillow in a nightmare, Winston succeeded in transferring his hatred from the face on the screen to the dark-haired girl behind him. Vivid, beautiful hallucinations flashed through his mind. He would flog her to death with a rubber truncheon. He would tie her naked to a stake and shoot her full of arrows like Saint Sebastian. He would ravish her and cut her throat at the moment of climax. Better than before, moreover, he realized why it was that he hated her. He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so, because round her sweet supple waist, which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm, there was only the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity."
While officials considered removing the novel from the school's teaching materials, the principal had instructors currently teaching the controversial book in two senior government classes at Rigby High cease its use until the administration could find a solution.
According to the superintendent's statement, the final decision was simple: instruction on the novel would resume as normal. If any objections arose again, "an alternative lesson [would] be provided."
And yet, somehow, the alternative lesson "did not reach the classroom." Instead, copies of "Nineteen Eighty-Four" were collected.
Speaking to Idaho Education News, one teacher refused to clarify the issue, while a Rigby High student told the outlet that teachers simply didn't understand what was going on.
Since news first broke about the ongoing issue, more than 500 people have signed an online petition launched to denounce the administrators for considering the ban.
"Censorship has no place in education," Nathan Barnhill, one of the petition's signers wrote Tuesday. "If students are not allowed to tackle difficult subjects in high school, then you are condemning them to a life of ignorance. Less bubble wrap please."
The petition, set up Friday, received more supporters at the start of "Banned Book Week," which runs from September 24 to the 30, Raw Story reported.
