School Board Overrides Procedure, Immediately Removes Vulgar Books After Furious Parents' Ingenious Ploy
A brilliant strategy, rooted in both common sense and law, has resulted in a victory for both decency and parental rights.
Moms for Liberty, a conservative group dedicated to defending parents and students against government overreach, capitalized on a new Florida statute and compelled a school board to bypass its own procedures by voting immediately to remove obscene literature from school libraries.
The group’s strategy unfolded in a dramatic way at a school board meeting on Monday in Indian River County, Florida.
According to WEAR-TV in Pensacola, Florida, parents and others affiliated with Moms for Liberty selected books from the county’s school libraries and then read explicit passages aloud at the meeting.
Alas, they had no difficulty finding such books.
Jennifer Pippin, head of the Moms For Liberty Indian River County chapter, told the board that the parents had found the materials simply by “doing keyword searches like rape, incest, pedophilia, bestiality.”
As a result, they uncovered passages that shocked school board members. For instance, one person read aloud from a passage depicting a scene of sexual violence.
“You know you’re supposed to listen when I talk to you? He shoved me to the floor and pulled off my pants,” the passage read.
Indian River County School Board Chairwoman Dr. Peggy Jones interrupted the reading.
“We are adults and if there are children out there. I understand that. I understand that. But we don’t want to be reading that aloud,” Jones said.
Similar exchanges ensued.
TC Palm, a news site covering Indian River and two adjacent counties, reported that other board members echoed Jones’ objection.
“There’s nothing that can justify this being OK,” board member Jacqueline Rosario said. “These books need to be removed immediately.”
The school district’s normal procedure for challenging obscene literature begins with making a complaint to a principal. From there, a book-review committee considers the challenge.
Moms for Liberty, however, utilized Florida’s HB 1069. Under this new statute, interruptions of public readings require immediate removal of the literature in question from school libraries. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law in July.
The law provides remarkable clarity based on an unobjectionable application of common sense.
After all, if obscene passages prevent public readings, then school officials cannot place such literature at minors’ disposal.
It would be nice to think that school boards needed no such prodding from state laws. But Moms for Liberty had appealed to the board several times before Monday.
“Every other time we’ve read (the books), we’ve been shut down immediately,” Pippin told TC Palm on Tuesday. In those instances, the board took no action.
Primary credit, of course, belongs to Moms for Liberty. Their persistence forced the school board to act.
A good deal of residual credit, however, goes to Florida’s legislators and the state’s anti-woke governor.
DeSantis’ presidential campaign might have stalled a bit recently, but his state steadfastly remains a sanctuary for all who love liberty.
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