meanwhile another school district is divided over a book ban this time it's a sociology textbook for Ridge High School students in Bernards Township a large and very vocal group of parents turned out Monday night to a Board of Education meeting pushing back against the board's decision to block the book which is being described by opponents as biased on balanced ideology senior correspondent Joanna Gagis was there and has the story I'm embarrassed of this board because disallowing the new textbook is an abuse of your power with all due respect I ask you to approve this first textbook as soon as possible and put this embarrassing situation behind us Bernard's Township has joined the list of school districts in the state where book bands have taken Center Stage the school board voted in previous meetings to reject two new advanced level sociology textbooks recommended by their curriculum committee not for what they contain but what they don't it appears there were two main objections with that first textbook first Mr Molinari argued something about a page or a chart that he said didn't accurately discuss the gains made by women that one's easily overcome as the textbook does indicate that women have made steady but slow progress several community members including parents and students spoke at last night's board meeting some objecting to the book bands the second complaint about the textbook was from Miss Tupac who complained that one of the studies was dated however we've since learned that the reason this older studies included in the textbook is that it's considered a foundational study in sociology forzani referring to the first book band a second textbook called The Real World an Introduction to Sociology was called trash and quote not worthy of our consideration by one board member and some took issue with the way it depicted the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri in 2015. some parents agree with the ban saying the book didn't explain Brown's size and the fact that he was wrestling with police I'm sorry but I think that's a pretty important detail to leave out you don't just leave that out because it's politically inconvenient we should be teaching our kids that it's a bad idea to get into a fist fight with a cop don't take my word for it read the actual doj report several spoken defense of the teachers who they believe Foster discussion and should have the authority to recommend books for the curriculum when did we as people become so sure of our opinions that we cannot defer to those with more education and expertise than us to make informed decisions my kids want you to know that their classroom debates are robust and your censorship is both unwanted and unneeded our students they assure me and I can vouch for this at our dinner time conversations can think for themselves they do lots of research and it is in fact exactly what our fantastic teachers encourage them to do but others pointed to former Congressman Tom malinowski who they blame for trying to politicize the education system malinowski is using his once Mighty Campaign Committee as a weapon to win fields in the culture wars over public education again don't take my word for it go look at nj.com on what he wants to do in the school systems our school system it's called districts for democracy their mission to counter efforts by conservative groups as to what is taught in public schools we spoke to malinowski who flatly rejected the idea of banning the books I think most Americans most new jerseyans believe that book Banning is Un-American doesn't mean we have to agree on what hap what what's in a book or naturally we're going to disagree about these things but we want our kids to be exposed to different ideas we want them to learn how to discern facts from falsehood we want them to be able to discuss everything from uh the history of this country to what's going on today in a serious and mature way he doesn't believe the ban will hold but last night's meeting ended with the books still rejected by the board they are considering alternative titles for the classroom for NJ Spotlight news I'm Joanna Gagis [Music]