A Tennessee school district has voted to ban a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust due to "inappropriate language" and an illustration of a nude woman, according to minutes from a board meeting.
The McMinn County School Board decided to remove Maus from its curriculum earlier this month, news outlets reported.
Art Spiegelman won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for the graphic novel, which tells the story of his Jewish parents living in 1940s Poland and depicts him interviewing his father about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor.
In an interview, Spiegelman told CNBC he was "baffled" by the school board's decision and called the action "Orwellian".
"It's leaving me with my jaw open, like, 'What?'" he said.
The minutes from the January 10 school board meeting indicate objections over some of the language used.
At first, director of schools Lee Parkison suggested redacting it "to get rid of the eight curse words and the picture of the woman that was objected to".
The nude woman is drawn as a mouse. In the graphic novel, Jews are drawn as mice and their Nazi tormentors are drawn as cats.
"It shows people hanging, it shows them killing kids, why does the educational system promote this kind of stuff? It is not wise or healthy," School Board member Tony Allman said about the book, which was part of the district's eighth-grade English language arts curriculum.
Instructional supervisor Julie Goodin, a former history teacher, said she thought the graphic novel was a good way to depict a horrific event.
"Are the words objectionable? Yes, there is no-one that thinks they aren't. But by taking away the first part, it's not changing the meaning of what he is trying to portray."
Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, which does not play a role in McMinn County, pointed out that the decision had been widely reported on Holocaust Remembrance Day this week.
"Yes it is uncomfortable to talk about genocide, but it is our history and educating about it helps us not repeat this horror," Ms Weingarten, who is Jewish, said.
The board emphasised in the minutes that they did not object to teaching about the Holocaust but some were concerned the work was not age-appropriate.
The discussion about redacting parts of the book led to copyright concerns, and board members ultimately decided to look for an alternative book about the subject.
Maus is taught in Australian schools and is part of the Australian curriculum.
Millions of Jewish people were murdered by Germany's Nazi regime in the Holocaust before and during World War II.
A Deakin University study released this week found that around a quarter of Australians did not know about the Holocaust, or had very little knowledge about what took place.
AP/ABC
