There’s a Simple Reason That Demands to “Ban” Books Like Maus Are Soaring

A Tennessee school board recently voted to pull the Pulitzer Prize–winning graphic novel Maus and its cat-and-mouse retelling of the Holocaust from the school curriculum. The school board members cited violence, nudity (in humanoid mouse caricatures), and profanity as the reasons. One member, Tony Allman, said: “It shows people hanging. It shows them killing kids. Why does the educational system promote this kind of stuff?”

The controversy this attracted seems symptomatic of a broader moment when certain parents and school boards feel emboldened to remove materials deemed offensive, especially when they concern history and racism. But this is not the first time Maus has been targeted in the classroom, and I wondered how exceptional our period truly is.