We’ve been having some trouble researching our case.
We know there’s information out there, but we can’t find anyone who has it or is willing to let us have it.
In the past few weeks, Cara and I have been in contact with multiple librarians, archivists and public officials trying to get information about our case, but we have almost exclusively been getting re-referred to someone else. We started by contacting Gene Hyde, head of the Archives at UNCA. Though this interview was interesting in its own way (click here to read my blog post on that interview), he had very little information on our case and recommended we contact the public library. Cara contacted the Buncombe County library system, was referred to a specific branch who then told her they would not have the documents she would need and that she should contact the school board, they were however willing to help with other aspects of our research, but nothing has come of that yet.
We have now also contacted the Associate Superintendent of Curriculum, Susanne Swanger, and Eric Grant, the head of Language Arts Curriculum for grades 6-12. Ms. Swanger responded by giving us the county policies and forms that I had already found on the School board website, and referred us to another person. We did find out, however, that the book was removed from the Honors English III reading list and placed on the AP Literature reading list (this is a twelfth grade course as opposed to the eleventh grade list it was on) Mr. Grant has not yet gotten back with us. We are also working on contacting the principal of North Buncombe High
From the NBHS home page slide show. https://nbhs.buncombeschools.org/common/pages/UserFile.aspx?fileId=3178239
School to see if she can give us the name of the teacher who was using The Bluest Eye, but we still haven’t found all of her contact information.
It feels like a game of hot potato, but we’re the potato.
There is good news though. This past Thursday we met with Amanda Glenn-Bradley, a research librarian at UNCA who is very passionate about censorship. During this meeting we found that we had roughly the same resources, however, Ms. Glenn-Bradley knows many of the librarians throughout Buncombe County and said she’d be glad to help find information through those connections.
Like I discussed last week, I think it all comes down to fear. The people we’re contacting are afraid of bad press and no mater how much we insist we are a coming from a neutral, research oriented perspective and are not affiliated with any news organization, there is one problem, perception. Our school, and the city of Asheville in general are known as “the blue dot in a sea of red,” in other words, we are known to be a concentrated speck of liberalism in predominately conservative Appalachia. But, hopefully, we can start finding more information soon instead of another person to email.
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