The American Civil Liberties Union is expressing concern about a recently surfaced body camera video that shows a plainclothes police officer entering and searching a middle school classroom for a book.
The incident occurred W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School in Massachusetts on Dec. 8 after classes had ended for the day. Body camera footage, viewed by the ACLU and local news outletThe Berkshire Eagle, shows the out-of-uniform officer searching the classroom, reportedly looking for the book Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe.
Courtesy Lion Forge Comics, Oni Press
The Berkshire Hills Regional School Committee and Superintendent Peter Dillion apologized for the incident in a statement sent to students, parents, and staff on Tuesday where they said that the district "clearly and unequivocally" does not stand behind book bans, but when "faced with an unprecedented police investigation" they made an error in judgment.
"In hindsight, we would have approached that moment differently. We are sorry," they wrote. "We can do better to refine and support our existing policies. We are committed to supporting all our students, particularly vulnerable populations."
The Great Barrington Police opened a probe into whether the book contained "obscene or pornographic" material after an anonymous complaint, then notified the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office, as well as the school and district administrators. The officer was reportedly personally escorted to the classroom by the school's principal.
Massachusetts public schools and libraries, like all in the United States, have internal procedures for dealing with challenges to books, none of which typically involve law enforcement. Ruth A. Bourquin, senior and managing attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts, told the Eagle that state laws are “pretty clear about police not having roles in this situation.”
“That’s partly what is so concerning. Police going into schools and searching for books is the sort of thing you hear about in communist China and Russia. What are we doing?” she said, adding, "We’re very troubled by this notion. They say anytime someone could call they have an obligation to go marching into places wearing a body cam, and interrogating people."
Gender Queer was the most-banned book of 2022, according to data from the American Library Association, which also reported a record-breaking amount of challenges to books during the year. The ACLU is asking law enforcement to turn over body camera footage and other records pertaining to the investigation.
