Because It’s Illegal

There are a number of us in my community who are working at improving our school district, trying to get more parent-responsive schoolboard members, trying to get more school choice, trying to get rid of SEL, CRT,and sexualizing materials from our schools. One person in the group pointed us to a video clip from a Michael Knowles show, in which Knowles highlights a dad in upstate New York who addresses his school board in an exemplary way.

 

Michael Knowles highlights a parent addressing a school board,
screenshot from here

The dad sets up a scenario: your 15-year-old daughter’s birthday party. Would you give her this particular book—it was Girl in Translation—and he reads a passage from it. [This book is in my school district's libraries, by the way.] The passage depicts a sex scene in graphic detail. Then he asks, in the same level, unemotional tone, would they give that book to their daughter? Would they read that to her? He notes that their reaction of revulsion shows they would not. And yet the book is in the schools for 10^th-graders, coinciding with that hypothetical 15-year-old daughter.

Then he read them the US Department of Justice’s statement on their website concerning laws on obscenity. He simply points out that having the book available to minors is in violation of the US code, implying to those with ears to hear that, if they don’t clear up this problem, they will be liable and should maybe lawyer up.

Here in Texas we’ve been working through the legislature—without success thus far—to eliminate the “obscenity exemption,” which allows images or descriptions that would otherwise be considered pornographic to be allowed for educational purposes. The intention of the exemption has been to allow diagrams, etc., for health science and sex education. But it has been used as a cover for anything; once a book is in the school, you call it educational, even if it would get you charged elsewhere.

Novels, including graphic novels, are not used for science and sex ed. In our school district, those particular books are disallowed from use for sex ed by the SHAC committee (school health advisory committee).

So this got me thinking: we don’t have to depend on getting rid of that obscenity exemption. The schools are already in violation of US federal laws against providing porn to minors. And they’re against the Texas code as well.

Maybe we could use this law approach to get rid of these books in schools—starting with speaking up at school board meetings. And I would assume that might need to be followed up with lawsuits—criminal prosecutions, or civil suits wherever local prosecutors fail to follow through with criminal prosecutions.

To that end, I’m looking at what could be said at school board meetings. And maybe this can be a template for parents of other school districts to use.

In our district, community members get typically two minutes to speak, so what I have below may need to be divided up for multiple speakers. I’ll be showing materials related specifically to my district. But the books mentioned are widely used across the country. You should be able to go to your school district website and find out what books are available in the libraries. And you should also be able to track down your district’s policies for getting obscene books removed from libraries.

So, consider what is below to be addressing the local school board.

 

The Law

Suppose some nefarious person decided to illustrate a classic piece of literature—let’s say a collection of Keats poetry—with pornographic images. Would the book qualify as literature because of the literary value of the poems? Or would it qualify as pornographic because of those images?

The answer is, literature does not elevate the pornography to the level of literature; the pornography degrades the otherwise inspiring poetry into a work of pornography.

This is a matter of law.

According to the US Department of Justice website, which I’ve included in your handout: 

“transmitting obscenity and child pornography, whether via the Internet or other means, is…illegal under federal law for both adults and juveniles.”

Obscenity is not protected speech under the First Amendment. Violations are criminal offenses. Also, the standard for what is harmful to minors may be different from the standard for adults, and offenders convicted of obscenity crimes involving minors face harsher penalties than if the crimes involved only adults. I suggest you read the statement in your handout.

Department of Justice information page on Obscenity

The Texas Penal Code, also in your handout, explicitly defines obscene as depicting “offensive representations of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated.” Also included are depictions or descriptions of other lewd acts. I’ll let you read the details.

Texas Penal Code 43:21

Note that none of these defined violations is allowed if you just couch it in enough non-sexual material. One example in one book is enough to be in violation of the law.

 

Process for Removing Obscenity from Schools

I understand that Cy-Fair ISD has a process called “Request for Formal Reconsideration of Library Materials,” which was updated in November 2022 and put into use January 2023. 

After identifying yourself and your relationship to the district, and the particular book in question, the first question on the request form is: 

“Have you reviewed the resources in their entirety? (If not, please do so before completing and submitting this form.)”

If a book is 150 pages long, and you’re reading through and find one example of explicit sex—which meets the statute’s definition of pornography—you do not need to read the remaining pages to know that the book contains material that should not be made available to minors.

If someone made a cake with excrement in it, would you require that a person eat the entire cake before they can speak to complain about the foul ingredient? If there is obscenity in it, it does not matter what else is in it; you cannot justify providing it to minors.

This is not merely an assumption. We have had brave parents who have read the materials in full, filled out all your forms for the formal request for reconsideration, and then patiently waited.

The chart included in your handout shows seven books that have been through the process. All of these contain multiple, pervasive examples of obscenity, some in written form, some in graphic illustrations. The examples are unmistakably inappropriate for children. But the response from the review committees, expressed by letter from the school principals, is that each of these examples is “educationally appropriate” and will be retained in the schools where our children can access them. I’m unaware of any obscene books that have been removed via this process.

The chart is a compilation of materials provided by Bethany Scanlon in multiple blog posts
at the Conservative CFISD volunteer blog, where there is a post for each of these seven books,
including multiple photos of examples from each book, as well as the letters of response.

This is not something we can agree to disagree on. It is illegal to provide pornography to minors. You are doing so. You have librarians who choose and acquire these books. You have committees of people justifying them—in private meetings without minutes, in violation of the open meetings act, despite the AG’s directive that you provide names and minutes.

These hidden committees seem to be misunderstanding the law. They disregard the obscenity, because they like the gritty realism, or they don’t think there’s enough to call it pervasive, or they offer some other justification.

These books do not qualify as sex ed; the district’s SHAC committee has ruled against using them for that purpose, so you cannot hide behind an obscenity exemption.

 

Damage to Children

Another question on your Request for Reconsideration form asks how we found the problem book, as if hearing about it from another community member is some sort of campaign you can ignore, and you only have to listen if our own child found it in the school, meaning damage is already done to our child.

Yet another of your questions asks what damage we see could result from the book—as if we have to come up, from scratch, with the arguments that led Congress to outlaw giving porn to children. We already know it does harm.

It is disingenuous for the proponents of providing pornography to children to claim we concerned parents are the book banners—as if we were trying to eliminate Huckleberry Finn or To Kill a Mockingbird from our libraries. We are not talking about First Amendment freedoms. We’re talking about illegal materials that we all know are harmful and cause trauma to children; that is why the laws are written to particularly protect children.

If the Cy-Fair ISD schools that have refused to remove these materials from their libraries are following your own policy requirements, they are providing the complaint, the book, and their response to the superintendent and the school board, which must mean the superintendent and school board can call into question the final decision. That also means this superintendent and school board can be held liable for breaking the law—in addition to the librarians and staff who procured the materials for the purpose of making them available to minors, and the principals who approved their retention.

Your process for reconsideration has provided evidence. Failure to immediately correct these serious errors puts you personally at risk of prosecution.