Should Harper’s To Kill a Mockingbird be banned in middle and high schools? Why or why not

Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is perhaps one of the most controversial
novels in the American education system since 1960. An almost identical film directed by Robert
Mulligan, under the same title, was released in 1952 and carried a similar storyline. For over 60
years, school boards across the United States seem still unsure whether it should be included in
the books that schools can teach. The novel’s plot is a story of a white family residing in an
imagined Alabama town during the Great Depression. The narrator (Scout Finch) is the
protagonist in the story. His father was a lawyer representing a black man (Tom Robinson) who
was a defendant in a rape case against a white woman in one of his latest cases. The two primary
themes of Lee’s novel are racial inequality and loss of innocence. The controversy around the
book arises from its use of explicitly vulgar language and context, which many people consider
inappropriate for children. People who support the ban argue that it is an adult book. This paper
argues that school boards should allow Harper Lee’s Pulitzer-winning fiction novel, To Kill a
Mockingbird, to be taught in middle and high school because the story enables learners to link
the past and the present regarding racial injustices and criminalization of the black body.
The issues around the storyline of Lee’s novel are relevant today as they were in the
1960s when it was released. As indicated previously, racism is one of the novel’s key themes.
The text of the story and the portrayals in the film show that there is an assumption that African
Americans are guilty at first sight, which is an old view. However, it has persisted until today.
Black bodies are viewed as not harboring any good but danger, which is still what African
Americans are experiencing today. It is true that the United States has persistently refused to

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confront the issue for decades, and banning the book from being taught in schools is the most
explicit demonstration.
In the film, Jem and Scout’s white neighbors seem civil and polite towards the blacks.
Individually, they do not seem to have a big problem interacting with the blacks. They even
wanted to help in some instances but were reluctant because of possible repercussions they
would get either in person or collectively as part of white society. These aspects show that
although some would have been willing to address racial injustice at the individual level, they
would not be able to confront systematic racism. In the film, court sessions were the most
interesting. It was demonstrated that Tom Robinson had not committed the offense of rape.
However, the white judge found him guilty, and no one in the courtroom complained about it,
including the blacks. Black people are experiencing the same things today, but traditionally
people felt unconformable talking about them.
In an article published in 2020 in The Washington Post, Errin Haines relates her
childhood experiences with the character and the environment in which Scout lived. She
reiterated, “But what I knew at some level, as a young black woman in America who had already
had her own coming-of-age experiences around race and racism, was that ‘Mockingbird’ tells the
truth about white people” (Haines, 2020). This statement shows that as children grow, they can
point out some of these issues, but perhaps because of fear or lack of understanding, they cannot
confront them. Therefore, they must know and understand how they relate with other people and
the world around them and studying To Kill a Mockingbird is one way to enhance that
understanding.
The primary basis of the idea of banning the novel from being taught in schools is its use
of vulgar language. Parents have also previously complained that the book makes the students

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“uncomfortable.” Bellot (2017) dismisses this view by observing that To Kill a Mockingbird is
milder in its language use compared to other novels such as “Native Son” by Richard Wright.
Watching the film helped me immerse myself in the past and have real experience of the
environment in a manner that I never had after reading the book alone. Based on that experience,
it is suggested that children can better grasp the novel’s major themes by watching the film. In
my view, the explicit language in the film enables the learner to understand the context.
Therefore, school boards and parents need to allow children in middle and high school to be
taught about To Kill a Mockingbird since it will help them better understand how the past has
continued informing the present and how racial injustices can be confronted.

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References

Bellot, G. (2017). Why are schools still banning To Kill a Mockingbird in 2017?
www.shondaland.com. https://www.shondaland.com/inspire/books/a13971188/to-kill-a-
mockingbird-banned/
Haines, E. (2020). The truths ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ tells about white people. The Washington
Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2020/07/22/truths-kill-mockingbird-tells-
about-white-people/
Lee, H. (1960). To Kill a Mockingbird. P.A: J. B. Lippincott & Co.
Mulligan, R. (1962). To Kill a Mockingbird. [Film]. Horton Foote