I think this conversation should be more nuanced than comparing it in general to all challenges of books for content of any kind. This particular kind of content in this particular context needs some consideration.

Imagine you are a member of a minority group living in a culture in which people like you were enslaved and murdered by people like most of the others in the classroom (not in reality, but because of a social construct invented by people like most people in the class to serve people like most people in the class). There is one word in particular whose utterance immediately calls this traumatic history into focus like nothing else. You are assigned a book to read in which characters who do not care in the slightest about this history of terror use it regulalry because it was overwhelmingly common during the time it was written not to consider people like you fully human. No one else in the class now cares at all other than the few other students like you, who know they will be harassed if they express being uncomfortable with liberal reminders of an awful past which many still overlook or dismiss. Some of the other students appear to prefer this period of time when things were less “woke.”

If you were in that situation, would you want to read that book and participate in discussions about it? I’m not even asking whether you would want to ban it, but wouldn’t you consider options other than to ignore the issue altogether?

Yeah, and in light of all the tribal violence around the world, we should stop covering Romeo and Juliet. We should just leave it at studying the subtext nuances of Dr. Suess. Oh wait. He has a troubling background too. We better stop teaching math as well. A lot of pushback on that subject and it makes people feel badly about themselves. Can’t have an education that makes you uncomfortable. god forbid.

For some additional context as someone who studied Of Mice and Men myself at GCSE which I don’t think this article covers. Do take this as a grain of salt as I completed my GCSEs over a decade ago and therefore the way this book is taught today will probably be different from my experiences.

GCSEs are the first meaningful qualification that students in the UK get, so, the level of study and understanding at this stage is comparatively basic. For English Literature it boils down to “the author states that the curtains in the room are blue, this is a reflection of how the character is sad in this scene”.

For this kind of level of education and for the subject that is being taught, I do not think it is necessary to use a book with racial slurs. What’s the benefit of forcing students to be exposed to racial slurs if the focus of the subject being taught isn’t even racism beyond “they call Crooks [insert slur here], this shows how he is isolated for being different and this plays into the themes of loneliness in this book”.

I remember Michael Gove wanted to remove Steinbeck from the curriculum several years ago as he felt it should have more focus on British authors and not American ones.

Hopefully, this challenge also goes nowhere and it stays on the curriculum, although I’d argue The Grapes of Wrath would be a better choice.