Bringing 2023 perspectives into new year

Tribune readers expressed their views on a number of subjects in 2023: from the controversy that erupted over books in the public library to the debate over closing Clay High School.

Many of the issues will continue to be subjects of discussion in the new year and beyond. Consider the Viewpoint written by a Clay High School parent, written after the decision to close was made, looking to the future and imploring school officials to preserve arts education in the South Bend schools after the arts magnet’s closure.

Today, we offer excerpts from that Viewpoint, as well as a few others written on topics that will continue to generate conversation and concern into the new year.

“South Bend schools must remain committed to arts education”

April 21

Clay parent Dave Griffith writes about the importance of the school’s place as a public arts magnet, where students “find a community of like-minded people who share their passions. In my experience as an educator, when a young person does not have access to such meaningful relationships, they often feel lost, anxious, unseen, unheard and abandoned.”

He writes that his daughter “looks for community amongst those who want to act, sing, tell stories, make films, paint and draw. In other school communities that made her a misfit. At Clay this makes her normal.”

Griffith notes, “We’re going to need to be relentless in our insistence that the leaders of South Bend community schools commit to fully funding an arts magnet option beyond the closing of Clay. Failure to do so will be a betrayal of South Bend’s young artists.”

“May I suggest another option for new South Shore station?”

May 12

South Bend resident Greg Jones weighs in on the location of the new South Shore station, advocating for an alternative to the downtown and airport options.

“Right now we have a serious bottleneck at two rail crossing locations, both near the current Amtrak station. There is a railroad crossing at Olive Street and one at Linden Avenue. What I would like to propose is that we consider building a combination roundabout/ overpass just like the one at Sample Street and Olive,” he writes.

“Along with this new overpass we would build a brand new, beautiful state-of-the-art combination Amtrak/South Shore station. There is so much potential for parking and development in this area it’s ridiculous. The Bendix/Honeywell area is absolutely ripe for development. It is a hidden jewel for South Bend. And it would also be a shot in the arm for the west side.”

“With book-banning laws, Indiana swings toward overreaction”

May 17

Indiana House Bill 1447, dubbed the book banning bill, was the subject of a Viewpoint by David Hoffman, a retired civil rights and constitutional law attorney. He asserts that history is like “a pendulum ceaselessly moving from overreaction to regret, primarily because people fail to learn from it.”

Hoffman compares the current climate to the McCarthy-era Red Scare, which resulted in censoring

books, TV shows and movies and the banning of individuals thought to have communist sympathies.

“Under this new McCarthyism,” he writes, “it was no surprise when Indiana politicians passed a law … easing the ability to ban books in public schools.”

“America is blessed with a culture diverse in race, ethnic background, religion, and politics. But such diversity often creates widely disparate views about what is right and what is wrong,” he writes, adding that children’s educations and futures “should not be hostage to anyone who perceives some offense at educational materials.”

Hoffman concludes that with Indiana’s new law, the pendulum is “swinging toward overreaction” and offers this advice: “Stop it now, so it doesn’t need to swing back to regret.”

“I showed up for a discussion about book banning. I found something else.” Sept. 6

Don Wycliff a former editorial page editor at the Chicago Tribune, writes that he is opposed in principle to book banning, “virtually no matter the content.”

But he takes a different view of the proposal to move “This Book is Gay” from the St. Joseph County Public Library’s youth section to its adult section. According to Wycliff, the people who advocated for the move at a public meeting he attended were asking for “truth in labeling.

If the books in the teen section are for consumption by teens, let the content reflect that, so that parents can know what their children will have access to when they go there,” he writes.

“What I heard were people asking, at another level, for the assistance of the ‘village’ in raising their children. (Remember that aphorism that so many enlightened people love to invoke: ‘It takes a village to raise a child’?),” Wycliff writes.

If the people who have asked for the move “really have something more radical and nefarious in mind, it will become apparent soon enough,” he writes, adding, “Until then, it behooves all of us — proponents and opponents alike — to behave civilly and with humility.”