School district takes 'To Kill a Mockingbird' off reading list

"There were complaints about it", said school board vice president Kenny Holloway.

A member of the school board told the Sun Herald the decision to pull the book from the classroom was an administrative and department decision, not something the board voted on.

Holloway said the book will remain in school libraries, but will no longer be taught to eighth-grade students in the district.

And Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse wrote on Twitter that students are "tough enough to read a real book".

School administrators in Biloxi, Mississippi, have removed Harper Lee's book, "To Kill a Mockingbird", from a junior high reading list, WLOX TV reports. "It would be hard to find a time when it was more relevant than in days like these". The reason: parents complained that the novel's language "makes people uncomfortable".

The novel is set during the Depression in a small Alabama town where a black man is accused of raping a white woman.

Superintendent Arthur McMillan told the paper in a statement that "there are many resources and materials that are available to teach state academic standards to our students". It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was adapted into an Oscar-winning film in 1962. The subject is supposed to make one feel uncomfortable - and the acts of reading and discussing the novel can, in fact, help do away with racism.

The Sun Herald reported last week that it received a email from a reader who said the decision was made "mid-lesson plan.the students will not be allowed to finish the reading of "To Kill A Mockingbird".due to the use of the "N" word".

To Kill A Mockingbird has been one of the most consistently challenged or banned books since its release in 1960, according to the American Library Association's list of censorship attempts.