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"Brave New World" Rocks Cape Henlopen School District

Book Cover creative commons

Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel “Brave New World” has created a maelstrom in the Cape Henlopen School District where two board members say parents should be able to screen their children’s curriculum for explicit content before they begin classes.

During a meeting last night board members Sandi Minard and Jennifer Burton delivered impassioned arguments saying they were concerned about literature that they said had violence, despair and sexual references.

They said they did not want to ban the book but just alert parents about the material and let them decide.

The Wilmington News Journal reports that Michael Kelley, head of curriculum and instruction, said the book had been part of the course for the last five years without any complaint from parents.

Burton argued, that with the age of the internet students can now grasp the sexual and drug-related references quickly adding “This is not an education issue, this is a social sexual issue.”

Don Rush is the News Director at Delmarva Public Media. An award-winning journalist, Don reports major local issues of the day, from sea level rise, to urban development, to the changing demographics of Delmarva.