Banning the Dictionary

What are these people afraid of? The solution is for parents to talk and explain things to children, not hide the world from them.

From the Press Enterprise (Southern California)...

After a parent complained about an elementary school student stumbling across "oral sex" in a classroom dictionary, Menifee Union School District officials decided to pull Merriam Webster's 10th edition from all school shelves. School officials will review the dictionary to decide if it should be permanently banned because of the "sexually graphic" entry.

Meanwhile, some parents are questioning the district's response. "Censorship in the schools, really? Pretty soon the only dictionary in the school library will be the Bert and Ernie dictionary," said Emanuel Chavez, the parent of second- and sixth-grade students. "If the kids are exposed to it, it's up to the parents to explain it to them at their level."

"If we're going to pull a book because it has something on oral sex, then every book in the library with that better be pulled," she said. "The standard needs to be consistent ... We don't need parents setting policy."