A Mississippi appeals court this week overturned the dismissal of an assistant principal in 2022 after he read a book titled “I Need A New Butt!” to second-grade students.
Toby Price was filling in last minute for an administrator who was supposed to read to students of Gary Road Elementary School in Byram, Miss., for Read Across America Week. He filled in and chose the book, by Dawn McMillan, to read to roughly 240 second-graders over Zoom.
The illustrated tale follows a boy who thinks his butt is broken when he finds a crack in it.. The boy dreams of a new butt, listing out options such as a robot butt, a rocket butt or an armored butt, according to the publisher’s website. When the boy’s father bends over to repair a sink, he realizes that butts are meant to have cracks in them.
Later that day, on March 2, 2022, the superintendent of the Hinds County School District, Delesicia Martin, called Mr. Price into her office and told him that he was being placed on administrative leave, Mr. Price said. He was fired two days later, accused of violating the Mississippi Educator Code of Ethics, court filings said.
Mr. Price, now 50, sued the district and lost. After the initial ruling, he filed an appeal.
The Mississippi Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday that Mr. Price was terminated without substantial evidence and that his firing had been “arbitrary and capricious.” The court refrained from ruling on whether the firing infringed on Mr. Price’s constitutional rights. It also said that Mr. Price needed to be reinstated and sent the case back to a lower court to determine the details of his reinstatement and whether he should receive back pay.
The ruling was unanimous and came from judges “across the state and political spectrum,” Mr. Price’s lawyer, Joel Dillard, said.
Speaking by phone on Thursday, Mr. Price said that he was grateful for the ruling and that it showed that children should have “good, silly books” to make them want to read.
“If you limit the books kids can have, you limit the person they can become,” Mr. Price said, adding that he was thankful his parents let him read Spider-Man comics as a child. The comics showed him the importance of being a good person, he said.
A lawyer representing the school district declined to comment when reached by phone on Wednesday. The school district declined to comment on Thursday.
After being fired, Mr. Price challenged the decision, and the school district conducted a due process hearing.
During the hearing, Ms. Martin, the district superintendent, said that Mr. Price had violated several standards of the Mississippi Educator Code of Conduct and acted unprofessionally. She mentioned a student who had previously been disciplined for pulling their pants down, according to the ruling. After the reading, the student stood outside an office repeating the word “butt” several times, she said.
Ms. Martin said that the book was inappropriate. Educators said that the book was not in the school’s library. While being cross-examined at the hearing, Ms. Martin acknowledged that several other books that mentioned butts or nudity were in the school’s library, including “No David!” and several Shel Silverstein poems, according to the ruling.
Mr. Price had previously recorded a reading of the sequel book, titled “I Broke My Butt!” which was posted to the elementary school’s Facebook page during the pandemic.
After the hearing, the school board voted to uphold his termination.
His firing was criticized by many children’s book authors, educators and PEN America, a free speech organization that fights bans against books.
PEN America said in a statement on Wednesday that the appeals court was correcting a “serious injustice.”
“Toby’s life was thrown into chaos simply because some administrators were offended by the descriptions of natural bodily functions in a well-known book he read to students,” said Jonathan Friedman, a director for free-expression programs at PEN America. “This episode shows just how damaging censorship can be.”
While the court cases were proceeding, Mr. Price wrote his own children’s books, including “The Almost True Adventures of Tytus The Monkey.”
“If I can’t be in schools reading books, I’ll make my own,” Mr. Price said.
Rylee Kirk reports on breaking news, trending topics and major developing stories for The Times.
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