How an Indiana town defeated a book ban in 1982; and how a new law would change things now

The teenager had been assigned to read the classic novel at school, but after speaking with his teacher at Tell City Junior High, his parents struck a deal: he'd read “The Red Badge of Courage” instead.

As far as they were concerned, the matter was settled. The school had set up procedures for just this sort of thing, and everyone was accommodating and friendly.

Still, they decided to share the experience with their pastor at church not long after. A person who happened to overhear took an interest and decided to take the matter to the next school board meeting.

And that’s when the accusations of pornography and Satanism began.

That request to moderate reading materials in the Southern Indiana town in the spring of 1982 eventually careened into a circus that packed school board meetings, drew national headlines, and rose the ire of everyone from upset community members to a fundamentalist Texas couple known for banning textbooks.

And it didn't stop at the John Steinbeck novel. Protesters went on to target a parent-approved sex education class for junior high students, as well as an elective course in which kids could play “Dungeons & Dragons," the famous roleplaying game they claimed promoted worship of the devil.

The protests went on for months. Finally, board president Tony Pappano had enough.

“I have been instructed by the board to inform everyone present,” he said, reading from a statement before a packed meeting on March 9 of that year, “that we will not allow our public board meetings to be used as a forum by self-righteous groups to promote their personal beliefs.”

All that unfolded more than four decades ago. But thanks to legislation Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed into law on Tuesday, it could easily happen again – and with much different results.

What began as a bill about third-party vendors in schools eventually morphed into legislation that could allow certain books to be classified as “harmful to minors." That would label the works as obscene and basically treat them like pornography, which the state has already banned for juveniles.

Parents – or even a community member who lives in a respective school district – can ask for any book they deem "offensive" to be banned from their school.

The school’s “governing body” would then review the request. If it agrees, any librarian or school employee caught disseminating the material afterward could face a Level 6 felony charge and as much as two-and-a-half years in prison.

The move is part of nationwide effort by conservative politicians and activists to control and cull school materials – especially those that deal with LGBTQ subject matter.

More:'Raw pornography:' Sen. Tomes' Senate Bill 12 draws vocal support, opposition

In Florida, a similar law caused one school in Manatee County to shroud their library shelves with sheets. Another school urged teachers to jettison reading material and use COVID funds to buy “appropriate” replacements, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.

Book bans can run afoul of the First Amendment, experts have said. And even if challenged books are eventually reinstated, the review process can be long, costly and disruptive.

That was the case even back in 1982. Pappano estimated at the time that the response to the mass protests cost the school system more than $25,000 – about $80,000 in today’s money.

‘We’re just concerned parents’

The parents – who the Courier & Press aren't naming since so much time has passed – didn’t expect their request to snowball like it did.

Speaking to the Indianapolis Star just two days before the Pappano and the board put a stop to the protesters’ efforts, they were shocked at how quickly things got out of hand.

“A lot of the stuff we’ve read in the papers, it hurts. Because a lot of people, they don’t know you at all,” the father said. “They think we’re some kind of religious fanatics or something.

“… We’re just concerned parents and just try to do right.”

But after the son-in-law of their pastor, who overheard their conversation about “Of Mice and Men,” decided to broach the subject at the January 1982 Tell City School Board meeting, things escalated from there.

Almost immediately, the conversation steered toward Tell City’s sexual education courses, which were available to junior high students only after parents signed off. Petitions to ban the course’s textbook – “Finding My Way" – started circulating through area churches.

While that was happening, another set of parents “began to have doubts” about a “Dungeons & Dragons” elective their son was taking at the junior high. According to the Star, it was one of “18 or 19” quasi-classes students could take to fill out their schedules at the end of the school day.

The game – which has sparked Satanic panic for decades now – allows players to role-play as mythical creatures, including demons. Upon learning that, a local pastor went on the radio and accused school board members of being “heathens” and “godless individuals,” Pappano said.

Then came the pornography accusations.

“Dungeons & Dragons” has inspired hordes of user manuals. Although school officials said the Tell City course only used three – and none that contained explicit material – one protester dug up a manual that allegedly showed a nude woman on its cover.

“If those kids are practicing Satan worship, I don’t see it,” junior high principal Larry Carlson – whose son took the elective – told the Star at the time. “When I was a boy, it was cowboys and Indians. Someone would be tied to a tree and burned. But not actually. It was just a game.”

One of the school’s teachers was even more succinct.

“There are no smut peddlers out at the junior high,” he told the Evansville Courier. “The devil does not hold court at Tell City Junior High.”

Mel and Norma Gabler

The parents who objected to “Of Mice and Men” stayed out of all the devil and sex talk. They didn’t have any problem with the sex education course. Or “Dungeons & Dragons,” really.

But the more they looked into what Tell City Junior High offered in its library, the more concerned they got, they said. The father claimed that when they first made the request, school officials acted like it would be tough to find “a book for a boy to read that didn’t have all this profanity and using God’s name in vain in it.”

The couple objected to words like "bastard" and "goddamn." They were also worried about how “Of Mice and Men” depicted “the killing of mice and puppies and old dogs and people.”

“I really believe young people could (read that and) think, ‘Well, a mercy killing is alright,” the father told the Star.

None of the articles the Courier & Press reviewed detailed the parents’ thoughts on “The Red Badge of Courage," a violent novel about the Civil War that has faced bans of its own.

Other protesters, though, weren't as nuanced. And that only amplified when Mel and Norma Gabler came to town.

The Texas couple – a retired Exxon clerk and “Texas church lady,” respectively – became famous / infamous for fighting the Texas State Board of Education over what and what couldn’t be included in the state's science and history textbooks.

The Gablers lobbied to have evolution labeled as a theory. They attacked any text that didn’t criticize communism. And they objected to anything that challenged fundamentalist Christianity as the definitive religion. Since a market as big as Texas was imperative for sales-hungry publishers, the Gablers often got their way.

“Meet Mel and Norma Gabler of Longview,” the subhead of a 1982 Texas Monthly profile read. “They want to tell your children what to read.”

In February, a local pastor invited them to Tell City. Hundreds showed up to hear them speak – many of whom eventually found their way to that month’s school board meeting.

Usually the meetings only drew a smattering of residents. Now the hall was packed, and school board members found themselves facing criticisms that had nothing to do with John Steinbeck.

No one knew how the protests would end. Just five years earlier, the school board in the Northern Indiana town of Warsaw caved to public pressure when it voted to ban the novel “Go Ask Alice." That triggered a two-year fight and accusations from teachers of unfair labor practices.

“I doubt ... teachers would trust a board member if he were walking on water,” a Warsaw educator told the Courier at the time.

The Tell City school board, however, held its ground. Pappano and other members decried the censorship efforts and made it clear that if community members and activists such as the Gablers kept spreading false rumors that Tell City schools were peddling smut and Satanism, they would take any legal action necessary.

Things eventually went back to normal.

‘The issue has always been censorship’

Forty-one years later, the people open to legal action aren’t those looking to ban books. It’s those looking to preserve them.

The new Indiana law could allow a book to be deemed “harmful to minors” for several reasons.

Some of them – if a book contained nudity, sexual content, “sado-masochistic abuse,” or a “persuasiveness for minors to engage in sexual activities” – are straightforward. Others, though, are more nebulous. A book can also be flagged if it contains “offensive content to community standards for adults considering what's suitable to minors to see.”

That’s muddled and subjective – and exactly the kind of thinking protesters were employing in Tell City in 1982.

The school already had a system in place to protect children. Any parents who objected to a book could have their child assigned a new one. Any parent who had concerns about sex education could read the textbook and decide whether or not to enroll their child. Any parent who didn’t want their child playing “Dungeons & Dragons” for a few minutes a day could keep them from doing so.

“I really don’t understand what all the furor has been about,” Carlson told the Star in '82. “The issue has not, or never has been, sex education or ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ or ‘Of Mice and Men.’ I think the issue has always been censorship.”

Additional information from newspaper archives.