After Student Complains About Novels, a Fiction Course Will Get a Disclaimer

A professor at Crafton Hills College, in California, will add a disclaimer to the syllabus for a course on fiction after a student and her parents complained about what they called violent and pornographic content in some of graphic novels on the reading list.

The Redlands Daily Facts reports the community college’s president, Cheryl A. Marshall, said in an email that it was trying to “avoid this situation in the future” and that the English professor, Ryan Bartlett, had agreed to add a disclaimer to his syllabus.

The student and her parents complained about four works: Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel; YY: The Last Man, Vol. 1, by Brian Vaughan; The Sandman, Vol. 2: The Doll’s House, by Neil Gaiman; and Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi.

“I don’t want to ban the books or burn them,” said the student, Tara Shultz. “I don’t believe that is the right thing to do. You can read whatever you want to read. That’s the beauty of the First Amendment. I’m not trying to do anything like that at all. I just don’t believe they need to be in an English course.”

In an email to the newspaper, Mr. Bartlett said he had chosen “several highly acclaimed, award-winning graphic novels in my English 250 course not because they are purportedly racy but because each speaks to the struggles of the human condition.”