Yorkville school board candidates defend ‘Just Mercy’ votes ahead of April 1 elections

One of the hot-button issues at a candidate forum for Yorkville School District 115 board was the 2023 decision by the board to remove the book “Just Mercy” from the high school reading curriculum.

The single topic generated eight questions from the packed audience at Congregational United Church of Christ in Yorkville on Feb. 27. The April 1 election features five candidates vying for two seats, and another two incumbent candidates running unopposed.

The five candidates in competitive races gave their perspectives on the book’s removal and how the board should proceed with any similar future events. This included incumbent Mike Knoll, who is battling Jospeh Rand, Julie Hart, Molly Gerke, and Jeanette Norman for two open seats.

Knoll was one of the four board members who voted in 2023 to remove “Just Mercy,” a memoir by Bryan Stevenson detailing systemic racial injustices in the American judicial system, from a high school English class’ curriculum.

Shawn Schumacher and Leslie Smogor are the two board members who voted in 2023 against removing “Just Mercy.” Both are running unopposed to retain their seats.

At the candidate forum, Schumacher, who has 35-years of English and Humanities teaching experience with DeVry University, said challenging students through difficult reading materials is the whole point.

“I voted against banning this particular book because it was designed for a sophomore honors class and I thought those students were mature enough to handle that kind of material,” Schumacher said during the forum. “As a literature professor, I’m against censorship as a whole. Getting a stir out of some of the students is a good thing, it means they are thinking critically and trying to solve problems, that they’re looking at things outside of just the microscope of Yorkville.”

Smogor previously said the text was appropriate because it was for a rhetorical analysis class. At the forum, she said board policies should have prevented any rash decision-making.

“There is a system,” Smogor said. “Everything is going to be approved, everything is going to be on display. There shouldn’t be any surprises. If someone says something is controversial, there’s actually a definition of a controversial text. We have to make sure we are sticking to policy at the end of the day.”

During the forum, Knoll defended his vote to remove the book, arguing there was not an alternative text for students who did not want to read the book, as required by board policy. Knoll also claimed that the book had not been vetted properly and was “injected” into the curriculum by the superintendent, without the required 30-day community review period.

After a parent’s objection to the teaching of “Just Mercy,” the board voted to add a second text as an alternative option for students on May, 22, 2023.

A release from the board in 2023 states, “The Board of Education acknowledges that using ‘Just Mercy’ as an anchor text to teach the English II unit was unintentionally controversial; therefore to ensure compliance with BOE policy the Board of Education is recommending adding a second text in addition to ‘Just Mercy’ as an option for students to choose.”

The district’s administration determined the use of the book did not violate board policy.

The audio and minutes of the Aug. 7 closed-session meeting preceding the board’s vote to remove “Just Mercy” from the curriculum were ordered to be made public by the Illinois Office of Attorney General who found the meeting in violation of the state’s Open Meetings Act.

Audio of the closed-session meeting shows, Board President Darren Crawford and board members Jason Demas and Mike Knoll calling the book too controversial to remain. They argued the text leads to polarizing conversations and bullying, and should only be available in the library.

The Illinois Office of Attorney General’s determination does not seem supportive of Knoll’s claims during the forum that the board’s decision-making process was because an alternative text was not provided, that the book had not been vetted properly, or that the book was “injected” by a superintendent without the 30-day community review period.

“It is abundantly clear from the verbatim recording that the Board was not in closed session to evaluate any specific employee’s job performance or actions, but to make a curriculum decision about the book Just Mercy,” according to the the report by the Illinois Office of Attorney General. “The Board has not identified, and this office is not aware of, a specific statutory basis in the School Code for a school board to act as a quasi-adjudicative body with respect to deciding whether to remove a book from a course curriculum.”