The Limestone County School Board in Alabama has voted to ban the book Whale Talk after a parent complained that the book—“about a 17-year-old boy confronting his multicultural heritage while creating a swim team at a high school that has no pool”—contains “several curse words.” As an Associated press report in the Tuscaloosa News notes, district superintendent Barry Carroll argued that the book shouldn’t be banned because “its message was more important than the language used,” and because “banning one book could lead to banning others.” But he was overruled by board members such as James Shannon, who explained, “We can’t allow students go down our halls and say those words, and we shouldn’t let them read it. That book’s got a lot of bad, bad words in it.”