The award-winning American young adult novel The Hate U Give, which was removed from the Nova Scotia school curriculum last September, is now back in the news. It appears the decision was made by the Department of Education before receiving any formal complaints, according to newly released documents.

The book is about a Black high school student who struggles with identity and trauma after she witnessed a police officer shoot and kill her friend. It remains available for students to read on their own if school libraries choose to carry it.

At the time of book’s removal, an official with the N.S. Department of Education said that they had received two complaints about the book, including one from a parent and one from an employee of a regional centre for education, due to its use of the N-word and other profanities, which spurred the decision to delist the book.

“The resource was identified by some of our regional centres as being problematic,” Paul Ash said in September.

“We reviewed the resource based on the concerns that they expressed and agreed, and we decided to remove it off of the authorized learning resources.”

Following that conversation, a freedom of information request was made to find out the how the decision to drop the book was made.

It revealed that the decision was made in October before the lone complaint that showed up in the records, and that was not from a parent.

The Education Department uses a measure called Know the Signals assessment tool to determine what resources are appropriate to use in schools when teaching topics that affect and reflect the Black community.

The Know the Signals guide has three different categories, including Stop: Do Not Use, Wait: Consult and Go: Use.

The first category outlines criteria for when material shouldn’t be used in schools, including any resource that “depicts violence towards a group of Black individuals and has the potential to expose students to traumatizing events and images.”

It also says material shouldn’t be used if it includes racist terms or portrays Black and African Nova Scotians from a “deficit, stereotypical and racist perspective.”

The Hate U Give does depict violence against a Black individual and some Black characters use the N-word.

The documents showed that some teachers had concerns about the delisting process, including one who voiced her opinion to the department via email.

“It feels very uncomfortable to censor books (as a white teacher in particular) that are first voices like Angie Thomas, Nic Stone, Alice Walker, Lawrence Hill, etc.,” Tammie Landry, a literacy facilitator for Halifax Regional Centre for Education, wrote in May 2023.

“Are we sending the message that the topics, experiences, language a Black author chooses to use are not welcome as a choice in high school? How do we address systemic racism and disrupt inequalities from our history, without the history?”

The Education Department was asked to clarify how and when the decision was made, but it was unable to accommodate the request. But it said that it’s working closely with the African Canadian Services branch to select a number of resources that would provide education about African Nova Scotia cultures, histories and contributions.

  Nova Scotia