Readington book fight needs police. That's the real story here.

Here's the story: the Readington Township Board of Education will station a police officer at its meetings for the rest of the year, according to NJ.com. Board President David Rizza announced it after a September 8 meeting turned heated over whether to remove "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" from the middle school library.

I want to be upfront about where I land on the actual book question, because it's not really what this piece is about.

Where I actually stand on the book itself

Personally, I'm fine with a book like this sitting in a school library, and an eighth-grade restriction, which is exactly what Readington already had in place for nearly 15 years, seems entirely reasonable to me. But I also believe a school board has every right to decide what it thinks is appropriate for its own community. And residents have every right to push back if they disagree.

I've applauded that instinct all year. Parking. Property taxes. Data centers. A community organizing to make its voice heard is something I genuinely respect, whatever the issue happens to be.

What the actual meeting looked like

Board member Paul Lopes, a firefighter and former police officer, challenged the book in June over its depictions of sexual content and drug use. He said he'd read it twice himself and doesn't want his own kids exposed to it. One resident countered that the library "belongs to the public, the entire school community," not any single family's preferences. Others argued the book gives students a safe way to process real issues, including trauma and mental health, before encountering them firsthand. Some residents also warned that removing the book could conflict with New Jersey's Freedom to Read Act, which took effect in December 2024 and protects students' rights to developmentally-appropriate library materials, potentially exposing the district to litigation. A resident who grew up in Poland went further, comparing the restriction to censorship under Nazi rule.

Superintendent Jonathan Hart said the police presence is meant to preserve a "safe, respectful and orderly environment." A review committee will now read the book itself and decide by October 2 whether it stays, goes, or gets further restricted. It remains on the shelf in the meantime.

Here's the part that actually bothers me

Endless outlets exist for reading a book today. A township library. A county library. Ordering it online. Downloading it in seconds. None of that requires a single school board vote.

So the part that makes me shake my head isn't the disagreement itself. It's that a public meeting about a young adult novel now needs a uniformed officer in the room to keep things civil.

We've built a culture, largely online, where people don't just disagree anymore. They provoke each other, deliberately, and treat winning an argument as more important than the relationship it costs. That trend is spilling into real rooms, with real neighbors, over real books.

Two things worth remembering right now

In 1988 and again at his inauguration in 1989, George H.W. Bush called for "a kinder and gentler nation." He wasn't describing the moment. He was asking for something better than the ugly campaign that had just ended, because he believed it was possible anyway.

I also think about the unity this country felt after September 11. I'm careful about that comparison, because that unity came from a shared external threat, not from people simply choosing to disagree better. But it did prove something worth holding onto: we are capable of that kind of grace toward each other. The tragedy is what surfaced it. The real question is whether we can find it again without needing one.

Disagreement is the American way. It's protected by the First Amendment for good reason. But somewhere along the way, we stopped treating people we disagree with like neighbors, and started treating them like enemies. A library book shouldn't need a police escort to be discussed. Neither should almost anything else we disagree about.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 show host Eric Johnson only.