Maya Angelou's “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” will remain in the 11th-grade curriculum, having survived a challenge by some parents who wanted it removed because of explicit sexual content.

A special review committee was named following the challenge in May and recommended that the book remain on the curriculum.

District Superintendent Jack R. Harf backed the committee's decision.

Parents who wanted the book removed then petitioned the board to remove it from the curriculum.

Tuesday night, in front of a number of parents, the board met to issue a final ruling.

The parents' challenge died on the floor when no motion was forthcoming from the board.

Everyone in the audience who spoke about the book Tuesday pleaded with the board to keep it on the curriculum.

“It's a shock to me that you don't recognize what Maya's about,” said Samuel D. Westmoreland, a sociology professor at Kutztown University whose daughters graduated from Gov. Mifflin. “It's not about the rape or the sexuality, it's about overcoming hardship. She never gave up.”

The people spoke to the board before the issue became moot because of a lack of a motion.

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” is the first of Angelou's autobiographies and deals with the adversity she faced growing up black in the South during the 1930s.

It also depicts her being raped at the age of 8 and giving birth to an illegitimate child shortly after graduating from high school.

Westmoreland said many students could relate to the book and that it could help them deal with adversity in their own lives.

“It's books like Maya's that give them hope,” he said. “What she focuses on is the ability to go beyond what has happened.”

A Gov. Mifflin senior also defended the book.

“If we banned this book, then what's next?” Nathan J. Matz asked. “How much further do we have to go?”

Suzanne C. Ruch, whose two daughters graduated from Gov. Mifflin in 1995 and 1997, said that the two still talk about their education.

“The thing they both agreed upon was that they had the best background in literature among any of their contemporaries,” said Ruch, a retired English teacher and principal from the Wilson School District.

The one dissenting voice on the board, Gerald R. Potts, said he didn't make a motion to remove the book because he knew he didn't have any support.

However, he strongly voiced his opinions following the meeting.

“My upbringing says that I can't go for that garbage,” he said. “I don't care if she can walk on water, I can't subscribe to that.”

Potts said he was amazed that no parents spoke against the book.

“I thought they'd be here en masse,” he said. “I couldn't believe it.”

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” has been one of the most challenged books in recent years, along with Mark Twain's “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” John Steinbeck's “Of Mice and Men” and J.D. Salinger's “The Catcher in the Rye.”

In 1997 Angelou's book was removed from the ninth-grade curriculum in Anne Arundel County, Md.

Contact reporter Adam Wilson at 610-371-5042 or awilson@readingeagle.com.