When all hell broke loose two years ago over the yanking of Persepolis from the Chicago Public Schools, Mayor Emanuel’s press handlers wrote it off as a misunderstanding. They said some bureaucrat in the bowels of the central office misunderstood what he or she had been directed to do and things got out of control.
To his surprise, the central office sent him copies of internal e-mails that high-ranking officials—including Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the CEO—wrote each other regarding the book.
“I’ve attached a copy of 2 pages from the book ‘Persepolis’ that was sent to schools,” James wrote. “In my opinion it is not appropriate at all. Please let me know if I can pull the book from my schools.”
That would be Carroll, who was widely seen as the CPS liaison to the mayor’s office. Currently she runs Chicago Forward, a political action committee working to elect aldermen loyal to the mayor.
To which Byrd-Bennett responded: “Someone is in jeopardy bc [o]f this. Need a name.”
Gurley e-mailed a clarification to network chiefs: “While we can collect the copies of the book from the classrooms, we cannot collect them from the school libraries without going through the process outlined in the policy.”
