NC's largest district floats policy to silence parent objections to obscene books
Wake County Public Schools has introduced a policy barring objections to certain books for a two-year period.
Wake County Public Schools, North Carolina’s largest school district, has floated a policy that would place a two-year ban on objecting to certain books in its libraries.
Under North Carolina law and district policies, parents have a right to inspect and object materials in their child’s school, including books.
Wake County Public Schools (WCPSS) apparently wants to curb that right after parents have repeatedly objected to books depicting explicit sex scenes and foul language as well as some books even depicting pedophilia and rape.
After a lengthy challenge process that involves a review committee typically made up of members picked by the school board, the committee can decide to bar any future objections to a given book for up to two years:
The policy would also require materials to not be “pervasively vulgar.” That terminology was questioned as vague by WCPSS Board Member Wing Ng.
WCPSS’ attorney Jonathon Blumberg was cited by the News and Observer as basically saying reviewing parent objections to books was too time-consuming.
“It’s just balancing frankly the time commitment involved in putting together the committee at that school,” Blumberg told the News and Observer. “People are very busy already. They have to stop, they have to read the whole book, go through the whole standard and so forth and make a decision.”
WCPSS’ policy revision follows bills filed at the legislature to increase academic transparency and the rights of parents to inspect and object to materials in schools.
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The policy immediately drew backlash from parents and parent groups like Moms for Liberty of Wake County.
“Profanity, violence, pornography, and obscenity are BANNED at the Wake County Detention Center. But they are ALLOWED in Wake County Schools. OK for kids but not for adults!” tweeted the Wake County Moms for Liberty account.
The tweet included the jail’s policies:
Two of the books challenged regularly are “Lawn Boy” and “Gender Queer.” Both titles have been banned in numerous schools around the country in the last two years due to their explicit sexual content.
Both depict gay sex in a graphic manner.
“Lawn Boy” has been criticized as having pervasive themes of pedophilia and child-on-child gay sex. “Gender Queer” even contains images of blow-jobs.
Warning: The images below are graphic.
Algonquin Books is located right here in North Carolina - in Chapel Hill. The company issued a statement defending Jonathan Evison’s book “Lawn Boy.”
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