Who Decides Morality?

Classic? Controversial? Scandalous? All three?

I posted a while back about the emergence of morality clauses in publisher’s contracts. It continues to be an issue. Judith Shulevitz has an interesting take on it in the New York Times, pointing out that:

This past year, regular contributors to Condé Nast magazines started spotting a new paragraph in their yearly contracts. It’s a doozy. If, in the company’s “sole judgment,” the clause states, the writer “becomes the subject of public disrepute, contempt, complaints or scandals,” Condé Nast can terminate the agreement. In other words, a writer need not have done anything wrong; she need only become scandalous.

I take issue with Ms Shulevitz contention that it’s okay for children’s book authors to sign morality clauses while adult writers should resist them. We encounter scandal in the children’s book world too, and we occasionally stir it up. The Chocolate War, Where the Wild Things Are, and Harriet the Spy are all classics of children’s literature that were controversial and by some considered outrageous when they were published.

I think her other points are valid and important, though. Consider:

After our conversation, Ms. Gersen sent me an email pointing out a possible unintended consequence of the Condé Nast [morality] clause. Who are the groups subjected to the most public vitriol for their published work, she asked? Who is most viciously trolled? Women and members of minorities. “That is one of the realities of publishing while a woman or minority in this age,” she wrote. “The clause is perversely posing more career risk to women and minorities than to white males.”

If all it takes to lose a magazine gig or book deal is to fall into “public disrepute,” it won’t be only villains whose voices are lost.