When I was in elementary school, one of my friends, Casey, was without question the best female athlete in our class. But she was also the daughter of our gym teacher. I always felt that her father, in admirable efforts not to favor her, actually went too far in the other direction, and didn’t give her enough credit, enough public praise, for her superior performance.

I thought of Casey today when I saw this story of Robert Grandt, a librarian at the Brooklyn Technical High School school, who was fined $500 by the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board for displaying his daughter’s new book in the school library. (He also signed a three-page statement acknowledging his terrible wrongdoings.)

This is bureaucratic officiousness at its worst. And here’s why.

Mr. Grandt’s daughter, Eva, is a graphic artist who recently illustrated a comic book version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Here’s one of the book’s reviews from Amazon:

“A phenomenal, first-rate transcription of Macbeth, with state-of-the-art drawings. Far superior to Cliff Notes or the old Classic Comics. Eve Grandt’s masterful drawings provide the best art work I have ever seen and really bring this renown play to life, espcially for those unfamiliar with this immemorial work.”

…Sounds like something that deserves a spot on the library shelf, ja?

Grandt listed the book in the library’s newsletter, calling it the “Best New Book” under the newsletter heading “Grandt’s Picks.” Grandt’s been a school librarian for 39 years. And every time he writes a newsletter, he chooses books to feature based on his own subjective criteria.

He also displayed the book on a table in the library, with a sign that read (with a tone that’s clearly tongue-in-cheek) “Best Book Ever Written,” and gave away a few free copies of the book to students who showed interest in reading it. Giving Shakespeare to high schoolers?! How dare he!

To sum up the “crimes”: Grandt is proud of his talented daughter and promoted her book more than he did other books. He also made no attempts to conceal this favoritism, as he (quite rightly) felt that the book has educational value. As he told the NY Times:

“There are so many things going on they could investigate…and they had nothing better to do than allege that my daughter would have gotten 20 cents in royalties if someone bought the book. But nobody did. I gave out free copies. I was just so proud of my daughter for writing it.”

For me, a tax-paying citizen of NYC, the most eggregious crime here is the money and time wasted by those pompous bureaucrats on the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board!

This is the same Conflicts of Interest Board, the NYTimes points out, that ruled last week that it was just dandy for the City Council to extend or abolish the term limits that would otherwise remove them from office. And now this so-called ethics board is cracking the whip over a featured book at a high-school library?! Seriously?