Associated Press Revisits “Girl, Interrupted” Controversy

The Associated Press today published a new article on the recent controversy over the decision by school officials in New Rochelle to tear pages out of Susanna Kaysen’s best-selling memoir “Girl, Interrupted”, first reported on this site. The book was turned into an Academy Award-winning film starring Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie and Whoopi Goldberg.

AP: NY district reviews policy after books censored

The article notes that my son was the person who originally complained about the torn out pages – first to his teacher, then to his parents. Not surprisingly, although not a single person defending the district failed to denounce the censorship of the book none of them credited him for having the courage to speak out in the first place. For a group of people who are supposedly so concerned about “censorship” and “love” the First Amendment the omission is glaring.

Among the students who noticed the excised pages was the son of Robert Cox, who writes the blog, “New Rochelle’s Talk of the Sound.”

The article also correctly notes that I sent over a dozen emails to the district prior to running the story (including three each to Don Conetta, Cindy Babcock-Deutsch and Richard Organisciak). Something ignored by some critics of this web site who have criticized me for running the story in the first place. The simple fact is that the district did know about this issue in the week before the story first ran, ignored it in the hope it would go away, and only responded after the story was widely circulated on the Internet. None of the three ever responded to any of the emails.

Cox says he blogged about the torn-out pages when his later e-mails to the principal and superintendent went unanswered. The blog brought public attention and the district announced its disapproval.