Unspoken in much of the debate is that the vast majority of books assigned to high-schoolers also contain material that would probably be deemed objectionable under the same standards. The students of Rapid City are still allowed to read “Oedipus Rex,” in which the protagonist kills his father and then sleeps with his mother. They are still allowed to read “The Great Gatsby,” which contains alcoholism, adultery and murder. “Romeo and Juliet,” which remains on reading lists and on the shelves of all three Rapid City public high school libraries, centers on a torrid love affair between teenagers, both of whom kill themselves.

Speaking of underage sex: There is an interesting wrinkle to the banning of sexually explicit books in South Dakota, given that the age of consent in that state is 16. In South Dakota, a 16- or 17-year-old can also be married, if they have signed permission from one parent. That means that in Rapid City, young people aged 16, 17 and 18 can legally have sex, and can legally be married (an arrangement that often includes sex), but they’re not supposed to read about sex in books…

Every student I met in Rapid City had a smartphone, a device known to be used to access the internet. In the age of ubiquitous online pornography, book bans are antiquated and odd, in that the instigators of such bans purport to shield young people from inappropriate material, while doing nothing to restrict students’ access to the web. But it’s unlikely that the Rapid City school board is genuinely trying to restrict what high school students see. More important is the symbolism. More important is bullying the district’s teachers away from assigning challenging books.