Sen. Kennedy reads from sexually graphic "banned books" during hearing
Books were read aloud during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on so-called "book bans"
During the Sept. 12 meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) read from so-called “banned books” that have caused controversy in the past few years at school board meetings nationwide.
The hearing, “Book Bans: Examining How Censorship Limits Liberty and Literature,” featured testimony from Max Eden, Research Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute; Nicole Neily, President of Parents Defending Education; Cameron Samuels, a student at Brandeis University and Co-Founder of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas; Emily Knox, Associate Professor at the University of Illinois; and Alexi Giannoulias, the Illinois secretary of state.
Eden’s prepared remarks hit the nail on the head when it comes to the false narrative of labeling a challenged book as a book “ban.” He also called out the absolute absurdity of these books being deemed fine for a school library, but parents who try to read it at a school board meeting get shut down.
“You know something weird is going on, though, when parents try to read passages of these books at school board meetings, and the school board cuts them off because they insist that the material is too obscene to be read out loud,” Eden said in his remarks. “I guess kids could be listening? Great for them to read, but unacceptable for them to hear? That’s the principle?”
After the committee had heard from the various witnesses, Kennedy decided to get to cut to the chase by reading from two books commonly objected to by parents; "All Boys Aren't Blue" and "Gender Queer." Both contain graphic sex passages.
Warning, the video below is the portion of the meeting when the passages were read and they are very graphic:
Before reading from the books, Kennedy remarked that the discussion up until then had been a “bit too conceptual.”
After finishing his book quotations, Kennedy turned to questioning Giannoulias.
“What are you asking us to do? Are you suggesting that only librarians should decide whether the two books that I just referenced should be available to kids?” Kennedy asked. “Is that what you're saying?”
Giannoulias responded with no and Kennedy asked him to elaborate, interrupting at first by telling Giannoulias “not to give a speech” and to tell the committee what he wanted them to do.
“With all due respect senator, the words you spoke were disturbing… especially coming out of your mouth - very disturbing,” said Giannoulias. “But I would also tell you we’re not advocating for kids to read porn, to Senator Booker’s point.”
Kennedy repeated the question, “What are you advocating for?”
“We are advocating for random parents not to have the ability, under the guise of keeping kids safe, to try and challenge the world view of every single manner on these issues,” Giannoulias replied.
It’s important to note here that the state of Illinois has passed a law prohibiting the banning of books and Giannoulias was behind the action. The law forces libraries in Illinois to follow the American Library Association’s edicts or they will lose any grant funding they have.
Kennedy accused Giannoulias of “getting conceptual again,” which Giannoulias denied.
“Yes you are,” said Kennedy to Giannoulias, adding that it sounded to him that “what some of you are saying the librarians should decide who gets to see that book.”
Giannoulias then went on to claim that if individual parents get to decide “where that line is” then it was possible “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which has a rape scene in it, could be banned. He added he believes it “becomes a slippery slope.”
Kennedy, frustrated with a lack of answer from Giannoulias on what action was being asked of the committee, then turned to Samuels, who goes by pronouns “they/them,” was proposing.
“Senator, your definition of sexual is synonymous with LGBTQ identity,” Samuels said, to which Kennedy replied he wasn’t asking about that before reiterating the question, and pressing Samuels whether or not “only librarians and not parents” should decide if materials like that should be available to minors.
Samuels said Gender Queer had never been in their library and so “it was never banned.” Kennedy asked Samuels what if it was banned, hypothetically.
“Should it be up to librarians or should parents have a say,” Kennedy asked.
Samuels said there “should be facilitation of collaboration between students” and “Parents should be working with students and educators to be making decisions. Samuels ultimately admitted that book review committees take "a vote” and decide on what books stay and what books go.
Book review committees in most school districts are made up of staffers and librarians. Some of these committees have parents on them, however, the process for getting on the committee often involves obtaining references from a school principal or administrator and approval by a school board. In other words, a parent with objections is unlikely to be picked to serve.
On a related note, book challenges in most school districts involve a lengthy process that often can take up to six months. The end result has almost always been to keep the book in question on the shelves.
In North Carolina’s largest school district of Wake County, the school board has instituted a policy of banning additional challenges to any book for two years once a single challenge to any title has been introduced. That policy has now run afoul of the new parents’ rights law passed by the state legislature.
Kennedy pressed Samuels further, asking how they would decide if the two books read aloud at the hearing would be allowed in a library.
Samuels deflected by saying the scene Kennedy read from All Boys Aren't Blue is “about sexual abuse” and “is not erotic.”
Frustrated, Kennedy asked Samuels again if those books should be allowed with Samuels deflecting again, claiming students wouldn’t be able to understand abuse if they don’t read books like All Boys Aren’t Blue.
“Answer the question,” Kennedy demanded. “You come here and you say censorship is bad - and of course, it’s bad - but the obvious response is… Okay, you heard the books we’re talking about. Okay, we’re not talking about “Catcher in the Rye,” so tell me, who gets to decide?”
Kennedy continued, “All I’ve heard is librarians and parents have nothing to do with it. If that’s your response, what planet did you just parachute in from?”
More To The Story
Overall, those witnesses who defended keeping books like the ones read by Kennedy did so by claiming removal was an attack on “diversity” or on “marginalized students,” or a similar argument.
It wasn’t just witnesses, committee members on the Democratic side made similar arguments.
Chairman Dick Durbin, in an arguable defense of keeping pornographic and sexually explicit books in schools, compared today’s book challenges to the banning of “The Wizard of Oz” in 1928 by the City of Chicago.
“We now consider The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to be a timeless classic,” Durbin said in his opening statement which was followed by a video mashup of nearly hysterical media reports of ‘banned books.”
Durbin also mentioned that 2022 saw the most “book ban” requests in decades.
Durbin said there were over 1,000 such requests and that data point likely came from the American Library Association’s (ALA) “banned book” list; the same list used by President Biden in his new “LGBT protections” order issued during Pride Month this year.
Like Eden, Knox’s remarks also called out the misuse of the term “ban,” as “nicely alliterative” and that what was really happening were book challenges. Unfortunately, just a few paragraphs later, she went on to cite the ALA’s problematic banned book list.
Knox even went as far as to say parent complaints were censorship “in practice.”
“What parents are engaging in when they tell library workers and teachers that they disapprove of a title and challenge it is a censorship practice,” Knox claimed.
More To the Story has noted in detail the issues with the ALA’s “ban” list in that the books on it are not actually banned, all of them are sexually graphic in some way and all of the titles trend towards LGBT audiences.
Read more:
It is worth noting the top two books on the ALA’s list were the same titles read aloud by Kennedy during the hearing.
Of note during the opening of the hearing, Senator Lindsey Graham made the argument that the federal government should not be the deciding factor on book challenges and those decisions should remain with local entities. However, right now, the federal government is, in fact, inserting itself into these local decisions.
President Biden’s Department of Education has been essentially threatening and suing districts that attempt to limit access to sexually explicit books like the ones Kennedy read from during the hearing. Read more:
Watch the full hearing below: