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Two anti-censorship groups want Sumner County schools to lift a ban on the teen novel Looking for Alaska.

The National Coalition against Censorship and American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression sent Sumner Director of Schools Del Phillips a letter Monday.

It urges the district to honor its constitutional obligation and allow the White House High School English class to finish reading the student-selected novel.

It is particularly disturbing that the complaint of one parent triggered a county-wide ban within the span of a single week, without following established procedure and without so much as a review of the literary and educational merits of the book, the letter states. The district has imposed one viewpoint on the entire student body, without regard to the educational consequences for students.

The groups claim Sumner County violated its own district policy, which says if a parent complains, that student can be given an alternative book to read.

Sumner County school officials said last week a parent complained to the district, which led officials to review a two-page oral sex scene in the book and pull the book from assigned reading districtwide.

The book is still available in school libraries for individual students to check out, said district spokesman Jeremy Johnson.

Our policy was broken to start with. The teacher didnt run it through that process, he said. We do not see a reason to revisit the issue and think its been properly addressed.

Under the districts controversial materials policy, he said, teachers are required to submit all titles of required reading for parents to review, but the White House teacher didnt.

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Anti-censorship groups want Sumner schools to lift book ban