Panel Backs School Ban of Revered Novel

After reading two pages of the acclaimed American novel “Song of Solomon,� St. Mary’s County commissioners have unanimously agreed with the school superintendent’s recent decision to remove it from the curriculum, calling the novel “filth� and “trash.� President Barbara Thompson said the commissioners agreed that the book is too sexually explicit for junior-level students. Thompson said the objections to black author Toni Morrison’s book were not racially motivated but were based on concerns about sexually explicit language and scenes of incest. The novel is considered by some critics to be the Nobel laureate’s finest work and is regularly taught in high school- and college-level literature courses.