Texas teacher fired over Anne Frank graphic novel. The complaint? Sexual content

Administrators fired a middle school teacher in Texas after parents raised concerns that she assigned her eighth-grade students a graphic novel version of Anne Frank’s diary that included scenes depicting nudity and lesbian attraction. 

A spokesperson for the Hamshire-Fannett Independent School District in Jefferson County, Texas, confirmed to USA TODAY that a substitute teacher took over the instructor’s class last Wednesday. 

“The district is currently in the process of posting the position to secure a high-quality, full-time teacher as quickly as possible,” Mike Canizales, the district’s communications and community engagement coordinator, wrote in an email, which he said was also sent to parents last Friday. 

“During this period of transition, our administrators and curriculum team will provide heightened support and monitoring in the reading class to ensure continuity in instruction,” he wrote. 

The controversy that has embroiled the district, which sits in the southeastern part of the state near the border with Louisiana, was first reported by KFDM, the local news station in Beaumont. Amy Manuel, a mother in the district, reportedly took umbrage with the teacher’s assignment after her twin eighth-grade sons told her about it. 

 "It's bad enough she's having them read this for an assignment, but then she also is making them read it aloud and making a little girl talk about feeling each other's breasts and when she sees a female she goes into ecstasy,” she told KFDM. “That's not OK.”

Administrators apologized to parents last Tuesday about the assignment, which they called “not appropriate.” 

“The reading of that content will cease immediately. Your student's teacher will communicate her apologies to you and your students soon, as she has expressed those apologies to us,” they wrote in an email, according to KFDM.

The district has not released the teacher’s name. 

Not the first time the diary has caused a stir

The push to censor versions of the diary of Anne Frank, a Jewish teenager who was murdered by Nazis and documented her family’s efforts to escape persecution, is nothing new. Her writings are widely regarded as seminal to historical literature about the Holocaust. For decades, millions of copies have sold worldwide.

But the original version, which was published in 1947 by her father after she died, omits some explicit material discussing nudity and including references to genitalia and homosexuality. Subsequent versions of the diary have opted to include that material, which some parents deem too mature for young students.

A decade ago, parents in Michigan were leading similar calls to prohibit versions of the book over concerns about “inappropriate material.” Free speech advocates, including the National Coalition Against Censorship and PEN America, condemned the efforts at the time.

In 2018, a graphic novel version of the diary began to revive similar criticisms from parents. A school district in Florida banned it in April, following a campaign by the local chapter of Moms for Liberty, a grassroots organization designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an extremist group. Texas' Keller Independent School District removed it last year, too.

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Data from the American Library Association shows book-banning challenges across the country hit a two-decade high last year. Texas banned more books than any other state between July 2021 and June 2022, according to PEN America. 

Zachary Schermele is a breaking news and education reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele.