The Lucia Mar Unified School District will not remove a Toni Morrison novel from Arroyo Grande High School’s library shelves.
The district’s Board of Education held a special meeting Thursday night to decide the fate of the Nobel Prize-winning author’s debut novel, “The Bluest Eye.”
The book follows a young Black girl named Pecola Breedlove, who lives in Ohio in the early 1940s. Throughout the novel, she experiences racism, colorism and sexual abuse by her father.
The American Library Association frequently lists it as one of the country’s most challenged and banned books.
“The Bluest Eye” is the third book that community members have pushed to remove from Lucia Mar Unified School District libraries since 2025. In November, the school board rejected requests to remove “Gender Queer” Maia Kobabe and “Push” by Sapphire from libraries.
Why some want “The Bluest Eye” off of shelves
The request to take “The Bluest Eye” out of a high school library first came from grandmother and nursing instructor Jennie Merritte.
At Thursday’s special meeting, she told the board that she was disturbed after borrowing the novel from a friend.
“I had to put the book down for several days, but began experiencing sleepless nights wrought with nightmares of the past,” Merritte said during her statement at the meeting.
Merritte said as a survivor of sexual abuse, the novel’s depiction of incest triggered her, and she thought it could harm kids.
Lucia Mar first took up Merritte’s complaint in May. The district’s book review committee rejected the request, a decision which was then appealed.
Hillery Dixon, the district’s superintendent of curriculum and instruction, told the Board of Education that Lucia Mar’s single copy of “The Bluest Eye” has never been checked out.
The district allows parents to request that their child not read certain titles.
Board Trustee Mike Fuller argued the book isn’t appropriate for high school students, and pointed out that the novel’s main character isn’t supported by adults when she reports her abuse.
“What Pecola learns in that book is that you don't go to authorities,” Fuller said. “Heaven forbid, I don't want our kids to learn that lesson.”
When Trustee Donna Kandel asked if he thought the book should be in college libraries, Fuller responded, “Possibly.”
Board President Don Stewart said reading the novel first in eighth grade left him “unscarred,” and that it taught him empathy.
A split public comment period
Members of the public who chose to speak at the meeting were mixed on the literary value of the “The Bluest Eye.”
Michelle Berlin said reading it “ broadened my brain and my view of the world” and that she wanted to keep the novel available to high school students.
“Banning books overwhelmingly does target books about race, racism, gender, and sexuality,” Berlin argued.
Some who wanted “The Bluest Eye” removed also lauded Morrison’s prose. A woman who identified herself as “Dr. S” said the novel contains “mature and very complex themes,” and that the book was more appropriate for college readers.
However, retired Department of Corrections employee Randy Foreman called the novel “trash” and the author “a sick individual.”
High school English teacher Nick Kennedy gave his comment in support of “The Bluest Eye” while wearing a t-shirt that read “Probably Reading Toni Morrison.”
“I think there is a real crisis here when people read out of context,” Kenndy said, arguing that the novel in no way endorses incest. “That's not the point of Morrison's writing.”
Kennedy also pointed out to a lack of efforts to ban core texts like “Romeo and Juliet,” despite it ending in a “double-teenage suicide.”
The board rejects the push to remove “The Bluest Eye”
The Lucia Mar Board of Education had to apply the school district’s regulations around library media centers to decide whether to keep “The Bluest Eye” available for students in grades nine through 12.
Some of the criteria for selecting books include “artistic quality and literary style” and “validity, currency, and appropriateness of material.”
The board ended the meeting by voting 5-2 to keep “The Bluest Eye” on Arroyo Grande High School Library shelves, with Trustees Fuller and Eilene Pham voting against the motion.
