But in high school, some of the books we read were Nineteen-Eighty-Four (liberating power of sexuality is a theme), To Kill a Mockingbird (rape trial in the Jim Crow south), Huckleberry Finn (often considered racist in contemporary American society due to its frequent use of the n-word) and the Handmaid's Tale (rape and gender relations and racism).
I can't really imagine how literature, or society and history for that matter, can be taught without sex and racism coming up, and frequently.
And no "Watchmen", "Dune"… not even X-Men comics. Certainly not "Maus". No "Native Son", no "Farewell to Manzanar". No "The Good Earth". No "The Grapes of Wrath". No "Of Mice and Men". No "Invisible Man". No "Autobiography of Malcolm X". Absolutely none of Martin Luther King's speeches aside from "I Have a Dream".
Certainly not 99% of poetry.
Also would mean "Othello", "The Merchant of Venice", and all of the cross-dressing comedies like "Twelfth Night" are right out.
I completely agree with you that if this is allowed to stand, it would gut education irreparably. Critical thinking is already under fire; this would drop a nuke on it.
But in high school, some of the books we read were Nineteen-Eighty-Four (liberating power of sexuality is a theme), To Kill a Mockingbird (rape trial in the Jim Crow south), Huckleberry Finn (often considered racist in contemporary American society due to its frequent use of the n-word) and the Handmaid's Tale (rape and gender relations and racism).
I can't really imagine how literature, or society and history for that matter, can be taught without sex and racism coming up, and frequently.