The Board of Education of Dade County, Florida this week end voted 4 to 1 to ban a school memo and date book published and made available by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith to teachers throughout the country. The date book is designed to help schools and teachers who desire to include human relations subject matter in their curricula.
The date book contains listings of the important holidays of the major faiths; of national, legal holidays and other historic dates; and quotations from proverbs of many nations, great philosophers and great historical figures. More than 150,000 date books have been distributed annually during the past four years to school systems throughout the country. The action of the Dade County school board came under pressure from White Citizens Council groups, the ADL said.
(In New York, Henry Edward Schultz, national chairman of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, declared: “Until this moment, the Miami schools gladly accepted the date book as an aid to teachers in programing for education in the democratic way of life. The school superintendent was evidently willing to make it available to his teachers this year, too, if the League would agree to tear from the back a listing of books, pamphlets, films, recordings and teaching guides. This listing of universally accepted materials to help teach better human relations is also aimed at fighting blind prejudice–precisely the attitude which resulted in the Dade County school board action We will, of course, under no circumstances become a party to such an attempt at censorship.”)
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