On August 7th, 2023, the members of the Yorkville, Illinois Community School District 115 Board of Education entered into a meeting which was entirely closed from the public. The subject of that meeting: the discussion and ultimate removal of a particular book from the curriculum for being “too controversial”.
The closed session lasted an hour and 20 minutes, and members of the public weren’t permitted to observe any portion of the discussion, which focused entirely on removing Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by attorney Bryan Stevenson from the school curriculum. The book focuses on injustices in the United States judicial system and documents Stevenson’s efforts to overturn the wrongful conviction of Walter McMillian, a black Alabama man who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1988 and spent six years on death row before an appeals court finally overturned his conviction.
The School Board had previously received a complaint that the book violated the School Board Policy on “Teaching About Controversial Issues”.
Some members of the public were upset about the closed session, and informal allegations were made that the Board had violated the Open Meetings Act (OMA) when they shut the public out. Board of Education President Darren Crawford quickly and confidently denied that the board violated OMA rules.
On September 28th, Marseilles resident Mary Grzywa filed a complaint with the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, alleging that the District 115 Board violated the OMA, arguing that the “the board owes the public full disclosure of their debate on the matter.”
Chief Deputy Attorney General Brent Stratton agreed with Grzywa. In a binding opinion letter issued on December 27th, Stratton shot down numerous faulty legal arguments made by the Board’s attorneys.
Law firm Hodges, Loizzi, Eisenhammer, Rodick & Kohn LLP, working for the Board, issued a series of arguments about several different OMA exemptions that allow public bodies to lawfully enter into closed session meetings. Seemingly under the impression that quantity beats accuracy, the Board and their attorneys argued that they were permitted to close the meeting because it involved:
- Discussion of the discipline or performance of specific employees
- Discussion of evidence or testimony presented in an open hearing
- Discussion of matters relating to individual students
- Discussion of probable or imminent litigation
However, Deputy AG Stratton listened to the full recording of the Board’s closed session and he determined that none of the above applied. With only a couple of very brief and minor exceptions, the entire 80 minutes of the closed session dealt directly with the removal of Just Mercy from the school curriculum, a subject for which there is no valid open meeting exception.
Stratton also noted the inadequacy of the Board approved minutes for the closed session, saying “The minutes consist of less than one line of text to document a closed session that lasted an hour and 20 minutes. This office reminds the Board that section 2.06(a)(3) of OMA…requires minutes to include ‘a summary of discussion on all matters proposed, deliberated, or decided, and a record of any votes taken.’”
Stratton concluded:
“In accordance with these findings of fact and conclusions of law, the Board is directed to remedy this violation by disclosing to Ms. Grzywa and making publicly available the August 7, 2023, closed session verbatim recording…The Board is further directed to revise its August 7, 2023, closed session minutes to provide a meaningful summary of all matters proposed, deliberated, or decided, and then to disclose to Ms. Grzywa and make publicly available those minutes as well.”
UPDATE: On January 10th, 2023 (thirteen days after the AG order), the Yorkville School District refused to release a copy of the August 7th meeting recording in response to our FOIA request. Check CU published an article the same day: School Board Refuses AG Order to Release Secret Meeting Recording – Yorkville, Illinois.
Chief Deputy Attorney General Brent Stratton’s full 17 page binding opinion letter, order, and certificate of service is provided below:
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Ms. Grzywa’s contact information is not redacted on the certificate of service.
Thank you for pointing that out. We’ll redact that and reupload the PDF.
Secret meetings? Attempts to remove embarrassing book about white supremacist behavior from school libraries? What does this sound like to you?
This is authoritarian/fascist censorship, again.
didn’t our dads fight a whole war over this in the 1940’s?
I have read the book and subsequent viewed the movie. This is a story that needs to be told. There is no reason to remove the book from the curriculum
So the Board Members are Afraid of The TRUTH , What a Bunch Clowns & Cowards .
Hitler, Stalin , and Mao would be proud of those school board members that allowed this to happen. In a democratic Republic we have open meetings and open debate.
Hi Rich!
Are you the Rich S. that sat next to me at SF? As you can see, I’m still out there making trouble.
Education is about learning the truth, and when the truth is unpleasant, learning how to deal with that fact. The people who want to hide the truth from our students are not protecting them, they are denying them an education. It is not the students who are harmed by learning unpleasant facts. It is the adults who are frightened.
Controversial subjects are not to introduced into the classroom???? Education should be about controversy and how to understand, evaluate, and resolve differences and remediate disputes. If we don’t teach our children about the discomforting aspects of life how will they ever learn how to avoid or deal with them????