Great Barrington — As the controversy rages on over the Police Department’s investigation into the W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School’s possession of a copy of “Gender Queer,” Police Chief Paul Storti has issued an apology.
Chief Storti posted the apology on the department’s Facebook page on Thursday, December 21, almost two weeks after the investigation took place on December 8. “As the Chief of Police for the Great Barrington Police Department, I apologize to anyone who was negatively effected [sic] by our involvement at the WEB Dubois Middle School on December 8, 2023,” Chief Storti wrote. “Over the years, our relationship with our schools has been positive and collaborative, so together we worked with the school to try to navigate this sensitive situation. If our involvement caused distrust and alarm, that was not our intention. I promise you our actions were not meant to disenfranchise anyone or influence school curriculum. We are aware every day of larger issues that can stoke anger, hatred, and lead to discrimination. It’s been my personal goal as your police chief to head a department that can act as an ally to our community in times that can be polarizing. Whatever your race or gender, ethnicity, legal status or mental health, we strive to serve you all equally. I wish to emphasize again to our residents, teachers, students and wider community that it is not our role to seek out, censor, or ‘ban books’ in our schools.”
“I appreciate that I cannot take our alliance with our community for granted,” Chief Storti wrote. “The professional actions of police do, and will, come under scrutiny. It is our job to act with integrity and professionalism. We make our best efforts to be transparent about our work.”
In relation to this, The Berkshire Edge filed a Freedom of Information request with Chief Storti and the town on Wednesday, December 20 to obtain any records pertaining to the case.
Meanwhile, Chief Storti’s Facebook post has met with negative reactions from people following the department’s page. “Your department conducted a warrantless search,” Lee resident Joshua Bloom wrote. “Your department’s goal seemed to be searching for evidence of criminal obscenity by a teacher based on a photo of one image from the book. You could have done a simple Google search to see that the book had been widely reviewed and allowed in many schools. That simple action could have stopped your invasive search. You could [have] bought a copy of the book or even taken it out from the library to review it without traumatizing a teacher and our district’s LGBTQIA students and their families. If you want to be transparent, release the criminal complaint and the body cam footage to the public. The egregiousness of your warrantless search is making national headlines and getting the condemnation of our governor and the ACLU because of how far you and your department overreached and how scandalous your department’s actions are.”
Bloom’s point about the case making national headlines is true. CNN published a story about Chief Storti’s apology on the front page of its website on December 21. The story has also been covered by The Boston Globe, The New York Post, and other national media outlets.
On his Facebook page, Bloom has shared that a group of parents with students at the middle school have drafted a letter that will be sent to the Berkshires Hills Regional School District. While the link to the letter asks for the signatures of other parents from the middle school, it does not list who authored the letter in the first place.
Back on December 19, School District Superintendent Peter Dillon and School Committee Chair Stephen Bannon stated that there would be “several meetings to explain what happened, gather feedback, and articulate shifts going forward. This includes a scheduled School Committee meeting on January 11 at 6 PM.”
While the meetings, other than the school committee meeting, have not been scheduled as of press time, Dillon wrote via email to The Berkshire Edge that the meetings would all be open to the public.
As for Maia Kobabe, author of “Gender Queer,” eir publicist, David Hyde, has thus far refused requests for an interview.
[Correction Dec. 24: In an email response to a request for an interview, Kobabe’s publicist David Hyde referred to Kobabe as “her”. However, on Kobabe’s website, it notes that Bobabe’s pronouns are “e/em/eir”]
