Assassination Classroom manga taken out of school libraries in Florida and Wisconsin

The Assassination Classroom manga series has faced challenges in schools across the United States, with some parents and groups calling for its removal from school libraries due to concerns over its violent and sexually explicit content. Last month, Gifford Middle School in eastern Florida removed three books from the series, which features illustrations of students with guns in a classroom, after receiving complaints from groups. The Elmbrook School District in southeastern Wisconsin similarly removed the manga from its electronic library last month after a complaint by a parent.

The series follows a class of middle school students who are tasked with assassinating their homeroom teacher, who is revealed to be an alien with superpowers, before it destroys Earth at the end of the school year. Some parents and groups have expressed concerns that the series promotes violence against teachers and that its sexualized content is inappropriate for middle school students.

Jennifer Pippin, chair of the Indian River County chapter of Moms for Liberty, one of the groups that raised concerns about the series, argued that the books were inappropriate given recent school shootings in the US. She stated, “We don’t want students to think it’s OK to kill their teachers.” Another group, the Citizens Defending Freedom organization, announced on Monday that it plans to challenge the manga for its violent and sexually explicit content.

The removal of the manga from schools has been supported by legislation in some states. Florida’s HB 1467 bill, which went into effect last July, requires school libraries to only include books that have been pre-approved or vetted by a holder of “a valid educational media specialist certificate” from Florida’s Department of Education. The bill has been cited by some groups as a way to prevent the inclusion of books like the Assassination Classroom series in school libraries.

The Elmbrook School District initially added five books from the series to its electronic library for the 2021-2022 school year, but removed them after a parent raised concerns that the district might be promoting gun violence against teachers with the series. The district’s Director of Library Services, Kay Koepsel-Benning, disputed the claim, calling it “inaccurate.” Another parent raised concerns about the depiction of violence and the sexualization of minors in the series.

The series has also faced challenges in other states, including Pender County in North Carolina, where it was described as a work that teaches students how to kill their teachers. In Richmond, Virginia, House Bill 1379, which requires school principals to keep a catalog of all audiovisual content, and keep track of which books contain sexually explicit content in the school’s library, and make those information available to parents, passed the House of Delegates in February. Delegate Tim Anderson, who sponsored the bill, cited the Assassination Classroom manga as one of the reasons for the legislation, stating that he took issue with the fact that the series is available in some school libraries.

The challenges faced by the Assassination Classroom manga series are not unique. Another Weekly Shonen Jump manga, Death Note, faced similar complaints in the 2000s and 2010s. However, the American Library Association’s Young Adult Library Services Association named Death Note among its “2007 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens,” and the ALA cited the manga in its Banned Books Week 2010 campaign to raise public awareness of challenges to books in school libraries.

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