Sin of Commission?

When she began teaching English at Venice (Calif.) High School, Florence Russell, 28, was determined to enrich the minds of her students. She got a supply of good paperbacks for students to buy if they wished. Principal Walter Larsh approved so long as no student was compelled to buy the books (against the law). Teacher Russell's 51 juniors snapped up the books, though pennies are scarce in Venice, a brassy seaside settlement on the western edge of Los Angeles.

One day last month. Student Barbara Jean Herin, 16, came home with The New Pocket Anthology of American Verse, asked her mother to read aloud as she ironed. For Mrs. Herin, a devout Baptist, it was an unsettling experience. Out of her mouth came the strange words of one Ogden Nash: "Don't bother your head about sins of commission/ because however sinful, they must at least be fun or else/ you wouldn't be committing them." Barbara Jean's parents pored through the book, found at least 30 objectional poems. Most shocking were three by Walt Whitman (/ Sing the Body Electric, A Woman Waits for Me, Spontaneous Me) and one by Ezra Pound (Ancient Music), which repeats the word "Goddamm."

The Herins yanked Barbara Jean out of Teacher Russell's class and consulted their pastor. He fired off a letter to Principal Larsh, who quickly agreed that the poems were "unsuitable" and that the book would be withdrawn. When Teacher Russell refused to do so, Alfred S. Roberts, a cheesemaker who heads the Venice Civic Union and devotes himself to ridding Venice of beatniks (TIME, Sept. 14), charged into the fray. What Barbara Jean's father calls the "poetry analogy" quickly vanished from the halls of Venice High School.

Last week the case of Teacher Russell was a highly embarrassing item on the Los Angeles board of education's agenda. Was it a case of censorship? Superintendent of Schools Ellis A. Jarvis pooh-poohed the suggestion, conveniently ruled that it was just a matter of obeying the law against selling books in a classroom. Should Teacher Russell then be disciplined? Some 35 teachers at U.C.L.A. and Santa Monica City College rose to her defense in an angry petition charging "a breach of academic freedom." Said Florence Russell: "If reminding students of their rightful literary heritage is an offense, then I have offended. I refuse to accept blame for anything else."

Venice's beatniks were delighted. Cried Lawrence (The Holy Barbarians) Lipton: "This is another witch hunt, another effort of the squares to put down the beats. Why, Whitman was the first beatnik--beard, sandals, the whole bit." Said Teacher Russell with tired irony: "They have probably started a greater Whitman revival than I ever could."

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