WAPPINGERS FALLS – Mandy Zhang is a junior at Roy C. Ketcham High School in the Wappingers Central School District and the outspoken 16-year-old is leading the student-charged protest against the district’s ban of the book, Gender Queer: a Memoir.
District officials say it is inappropriate for high school students, but Mandy said taking the book off school library shelves is turning into an epidemic of book bans.
“Students should have a voice in what the board decides, not just these crazy parents from these far-right groups deciding. I feel that the board has become kind of controlling and dictatorial and especially with all these book bans, I call a book ban epidemic,” she said.
Mandy, who addressed a school board session Tuesday night, said since she began an online petition calling for a return of the book, she has received death threats.
The neighboring Arlington Central School District Board of Education voted seven to one to keep that book on library shelves.
The outspoken Mandy said after high school, she plans on attending Harvard, earning a juris doctorate degree and later running for president of the United States.
