YNOT – After one parent complained about the inclusion of the term “oral sex” in Merriam Webster’s 10th Edition dictionary, officials with the Menifee Union School District last week ordered the reference manual removed from all classroom and library shelves.District officials said they plan to review the dictionary to see if more “sexually graphic” entries exist. If so, the banished tomes will not be returned to the fourth- and fifth-grade reference areas for which they were purchased “a few years ago,” spokeswoman Betti Cadmus said.
“It’s just not age-appropriate,” Cadmus told the Press-Enterprise newspaper in nearby Riverside, Calif. “It’s hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we’ll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature.”
Webster’s 10th is the first book removed from classrooms district-wide, Cadmus told the paper, adding that definitions dealing with human anatomy — instead of human sexuality — probably would not be cause for concern.
Some parents in the district are outraged about the censorship effort.
“Pretty soon the only dictionary in the school library will be the Bert and Ernie dictionary,” Emanuel Chavez, who is the parent of students in the second and sixth grades, told the newspaper. “If the kids are exposed to it, it’s up to the parents to explain it to them at their level.”
Even some school board members are less than happy about the district’s decision.
“If we’re going to pull a book because it has something on oral sex, then every book in the library with that better be pulled,” school board member Rita Peters told the Press-Enterprise. “The standard needs to be consistent…. We don’t need parents setting policy.”
Peters also questioned why a single complaint from a lone parent caused such a strident reaction.
On the other hand, board member Randy Freeman, who has four daughters in the Menifee schools, s aid it pays to be overly cautious sometimes.
Webster’s 10th is “a prestigious dictionary that’s used in the Riverside County spelling bee, but I also imagine there are words in there of concern,” he told the Press-Enterprise.
The district has not stated when it plans to make a decision about the dictionary, but discussion on local blogs and forums suggests the book’s fate looks dim. Other potentially risqué words in the reference manual include “intercourse,” “cunnilingus” and “fellatio.”
