"Rolling Stone" Leads to Censorship Flap in Wisconsin District

Staff -- School Library Journal, 11/1/1998

Thanks to a racy cover of Rolling Stone magazine, media specialists in Kettle Moraine, WI, may have diminished authority to choose library materials.

The controversy began when board member and parent Gary Vose noticed the November 27, 1997, cover of Rolling Stone in the high school library. It featured the Saturday Night Live cast as semiclad cheerleaders touching their own and each other's body parts. Citing the cover and several articles and ads with extremely graphic language and sexual content, Vose objected to the magazine's presence in the library.

But instead of filing a formal complaint, he circumvented procedure by informally voicing his concerns to school board member Jackie Offerman. Offerman then spearheaded an effort to limit the discretion of the district's media specialists, who currently decide what belongs in the libraries.

Under the proposed policy, which the board will consider this month, a librarian's recommendations for library materials would be reviewed by a building principal and an assistant superintendent and would then go to the Board of Education for review.

Mary Finn, the high school's media specialist, worries that the proposed policy would allow any board member to single out recommended items for removal. Judith Krug, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, agreed. "If this policy is put in place, I can't imagine Rolling Stone is going to be the only magazine offending people."