What ‘The Sneetches’ can teach us about the battle against wokeness

It is unusual for story-time in a third-grade class to make national news. But that’s what happened recently in Ohio: For an episode about teaching economics through children’s books, the Planet Money podcast was recording in the classroom. Early into “The Sneetches,” by Dr. Suess — which, you may recall, features snooty yellow creatures with stars on their bellies — one student drew the parallel to racial discrimination. A representative of the school district abruptly ended the reading. 

My first reaction to this story was horror. I have loved “The Sneetches” since childhood.  Reading the book aloud to my own children inspired my first poem. More importantly, I fear what this means to me as an educator. If “The Sneetches” is off limits, what isn’t? Can we no longer talk about race in the classroom? 

I don’t blame the school district. In classrooms across the country, the danger posed by lessons about race is existential. A bill introduced last year in Ohio would have banned elementary schools from teaching “divisive concepts,” mostly matters of race and sex. The penalty for violations included losing state funding. 

The Ohio bill failed but the school district reasonably might have believed that a public misstep in a case such as this could give the bill new momentum. Indeed, comparable bills have passed in 10 states since 2021 and more than a hundred bills were introduced in 33 states last year alone.  Some of these laws cover higher education, and some also include sexual orientation and sexual identity. 

This incident shows that these bills don’t have to pass to prompt rational self-censorship. You see, “The Sneetches” probably does include at least one “divisive concept”: the idea that individuals, by virtue of their race, are “inherently racist.” As soon as the student drew the connection to race, the initially high-status, star-bellied Sneetches were “inherently racist.”  Ironically, what the third-grade class didn’t hear was how, in the end, the Sneetches learn to ignore differences of appearance. 

This isn’t the first irony involving “The Sneetches.” The book had been part of an anti-racism curriculum for children but was dropped after research showed that Theodore Seuss Geisel was himself likely racist. With respect to “The Sneetches” in particular, scholars criticized the fact that the Sneetches without stars on their bellies accept the unjust social hierarchy by lamenting their fate and then buying their own stars. They should reject the hierarchy instead. Also considered problematic is the naively colorblind resolution that fails to acknowledge the legacy of inequality. 

Some conservatives mocked these criticisms as part of “cancel culture” and defended “The Sneetches,” even while other conservatives were pushing for censorship laws that effectively prohibit the book in schools. In other words, “The Sneetches” is too radical for some and not radical enough for others. Conservative legislators may not have intended to ban “The Sneetches,” but their broad, vague and highly punitive censorship laws predictably foreclose nearly all discussions of race. These divisive concept bills push education so far to the right that they end up circling all the way around to effectively ban books that the right likes. 

Teaching about race is often complicated and uncomfortable. Even a seemingly simple children’s book like “The Sneetches” has layers of potential meanings, including positive and negative messages. Censorship by either side is not the answer. We need more conversations about race in classrooms, not fewer.  

Fredrick Vars is the Ira Drayton Pruitt Sr. Professor of Law at the University of Alabama School of Law.