A middle school teacher in the Hamshire-Fannett Independent School District of Texas was terminated after assigning her eighth-grade students an explicit passage from the illustrated adaptation of "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl." The incident led to outrage among parents and swift action from the school district.
The controversial assignment came to light when students were asked to read a passage from the "unapproved" book during class, which prompted concerns from parents. The specific text in question was a diary entry written by Anne Frank, the young Jewish girl who documented her experiences hiding from Nazis in an attic in the German-occupied Netherlands during World War II. This passage contained explicit descriptions of male and female genitalia, according to reports reportedThe mother of twin brothers in the eighth-grade class, Amy Manuel, expressed her dismay, stating that her sons came home and disclosed that the teacher had made them read the sexually explicit passage aloud. Manuel said, "I mean it's bad enough she's having them read this for an assignment, but then she also is making them read it aloud and making a little girl talk about feeling each other's breasts and when she sees a female she goes into ecstasy, that's not OK."
In response to the growing controversy, the school district sent an email to parents, acknowledging the inappropriate content and announcing the teacher's impending apology. The email stated, "It was brought to the administration's attention tonight that 8th-grade students were reading content that was not appropriate. The reading of that content will cease immediately. Your student's teacher will communicate her apologies to you and your students soon, as she has expressed those apologies to us."
The controversy surrounding this incident is compounded by the fact that the illustrated and unabridged version of "Anne Frank's Diary" was included on a reading list distributed to parents at the beginning of the school year, even though it was never officially approved by district officials. This revelation has prompted the school district to launch an investigation into the oversight.
Since the incident, a substitute teacher has taken over the reading class, and the school district is actively seeking a high-quality, full-time replacement as quickly as possible.
This is not the first time that the graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank's diary has sparked controversy in Texas schools. In a previous incident, it was removed from library shelves in the Dallas-Fort Worth's Keller Independent School District last year.
