The West Bend Current

By Noah Becker, Current Staff

When West Bend East High School teacher Hailey Dougherty wrote an email to famed author Carl Deuker, she wasn’t really expecting a response.

Deuker, a writer of books such as “Swagger,” “Gym Candy” and “Runner,” seemed too busy or too important to respond to a teacher in small-town Wisconsin. However, his 2016 novel “Gutless” was the topic of Dougherty’s email. The English teacher wrote to Deuker on March 23 because the West Bend School Board was considering removing the book from a list of choices given to students due to claims of excessive violence. As a teacher of the ninth grade English class, this matter was personal to Dougherty.

In her email, Dougherty informed Deuker of the proposed curriculum changes and then posed the ultimate question:

“What would you say in defense of ‘Gutless’ to make the school board realize why banning this book would be a mistake?”

Deuker’s reply arrived less than 24 hours later. In an open letter to members of the board, he wrote about the importance of showcasing modern issues in literature and included statistics on violence against Asian Americans as well as sexual harassment within schools, both central topics of “Gutless.”

“Sexual assault/harassment/misconduct, racial violence/insults, school violence—all these things are part of our world…  and our children’s,” Deuker said in the letter. “Since we cannot protect them forever, we need to prepare them. Reading ‘Gutless’ and similar books that take on difficult issues does just that.”

Deuker taught middle and high school for 35 years. In an email to Dougherty, he disclosed that he actively tries to minimize “f-bombs” and graphic sexual material. He acknowledged, however, that racism and sexual assault do happen in schools.

“The people who object to books like “Gutless”/”Swagger” just don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

Dougherty says that the large turnout at school board meetings shows that there are more than one side to this fragile issue.

“I just appreciated the fact that he took the time to give me an opinion,” Dougherty said. “It was really empowering.”

“Gutless” is about a high school football player’s moral conflicts. The protagonist battles cowardice when his Asian American friend is the victim of racist bullying by their teammates and he struggles to do anything about it.

In his closing segment to the letter, Deuker said banning books like “Gutless” sends the wrong message to students.

“This is the message they will take away. Kids, if you’ve got questions about sex or racism or school violence, don’t come to us because we don’t want to talk about it,” Deuker said. “And they won’t… In my day, it was unthinkable to bring up anything controversial with a parent, a teacher, or a clergyman. That wasn’t a good thing. Your teachers are trying to correct that. Support them.”

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(Top photo by Noah Becker, Current Staff.)