Once upon a time there was a man named Thomas Bowdler. Bowdler, a physician, published in 1807 an altered versions of Shakespeare that removed “offensive” passages in an attempt to make Shakespeare more suitable for women and children. According to wikipedia:

His expurgation was the subject of some criticism and ridicule and, through the eponym bowdlerise (or bowdlerize), his name is now associated with censorship of literature, motion pictures and television programmes.

Fast forward to present day. The New Rochelle school district assigns a 12th-grade English class to read “Girl, Interrupted” and compare it against the movie version. Upon discovering a passage with a frank discussion of oral sex, however, the faculty takes it upon themselves to rip out the offending pages.

“The material was of a sexual nature that we deemed inappropriate for teachers to present to their students,” said English Department Chariperson Leslie Altschul, “since the book has other redeeming features, we took the liberty of bowdlerizing.”

What the hell? An official quote from the school actually mentions “bowdlerizing”? Do they know how this has gone down (pun intended) in the past?

The chairperson [of the school board] has admitted she did not read the book before approving it for use and only acted after receiving a complaint.

How sad that an administrator would rip pages from a book (in front of students) that they themselves haven’t even read. I wonder how many of the kids responded by walking down to their nearest bookstore and purchasing (or even just reading) a copy so that they could see what sort of content it was that they evidently could not be trusted with. High schoolers are curious people. If you try to keep soemthing from them, they’ll try double-hard to find it out.

[via New Rochelle's Talk of the Sound and Bookninja]