ACLJ Files Court Petition on Behalf of Moms for Liberty To Protect Children From Pornographic Material in School

The ACLJ has filed a petition in a New York court to protect kids as young as 12 years old from exposure to pornography in a school library in New York.  The petition challenges the Clyde-Savannah Central District School Board’s decision to restore sexually explicit books in its Jr/Sr. High School library for kids from seventh to twelfth grades.

The school board initially did the right thing and removed these books by a 5-3 vote; however, they reversed course and reinstated them just one month later following legal threats from the school librarian and others erroneously arguing that the children are entitled to the sexually explicit content as a matter of law.

As we informed you several months ago, we sent a legal letter to the school board on behalf of a concerned reverend in the community as well as the local chapter of Moms for Liberty representing several parents with children who have access to the school library. In our letter, we urged the school board to do right thing and protect children from these grossly inappropriate books – books containing extremely graphic accounts of sexual encounters between minors, as well as the rape of a minor child by an adult, and excessive profanity (one book contained more than 100 profanities). The challenged books include romance and fantasy novels, as well as some non-fiction. The suggested reading age for many of these books is adult – not children.

We also fought back by filing a petition with the Commissioner for the New York State of Education (NYSED). In the petition, we explained that the school board’s decision to keep the sexually explicit books was based on an erroneous interpretation of the First Amendment and that there is no such right for students to access inappropriate content in public schools or for teachers to provide access to such content. In fact, the United States Supreme Court has made abundantly clear that schools have a compelling interest in protecting children from inappropriate and lewd content.  Once more, the Court has unanimously held that a school board maintains the right and the power to remove such content from its schools.

Unfortunately, NYSED’s Commissioner doubled down and adopted the same erroneous legal reasoning propelled by those fighting to keep the inappropriate material in the school library. The Commissioner opined that school districts do not have any duty to protect students from vulgar speech and that the issue in the case was not about protecting students, but instead, about students and teachers’ “right to academic, intellectual, and personal freedom.” The Commissioner ruled that school librarians have a fundamental right to put books in a library, no matter how obscene or inappropriate they may be so that they can expose children to diverse views.

The introduction of sexually explicit books in public and school libraries has become so rampant that in recent years, several states have passed legislation to put an end to it. Some states, including Missouri, have even pulled their funding of the American Library Association (ALA) following evidence that the ALA has been pushing for and encouraging librarians to introduce sexually explicit books into children’s libraries and to oppose concerns raised by parents and educators by gaslighting them and turning the argument into one about the “book banning” based on political or social views.

To be sure, this case is not about a book ban. Nor is it about stifling diverse views on politics or cultural or social issues.  There are hundreds of other age-appropriate books representing diverse viewpoints that do not contain pornography. Why can’t those books be included in the school library instead of the pornographic ones?

A 12 year old can’t just walk into a movie theater and watch an R-rated movie without parental permission, so why should it be controversial to apply the same standard in a school library?

Today, we have taken the next step to challenge this dangerous precedent by filing a petition in New York state court seeking to overturn the decision of the Commissioner and the school board. As we explain in our petition, both federal and state laws emphasize the important role and compelling interest of public schools in protecting children from exposure to lewd and obscene content. Public schools and boards of education owe a duty of care to both parents and students to ensure that the curriculum and other materials provided to students are free of pornography and are age appropriate. Parents should be able to trust that the books selected by their children’s librarians do not contain pornography or sexually explicit material, excessive profanity, and other lewd or vulgar content. The school board’s decision to reinstate the sexually explicit books flies in the face of this duty and compelling interest.

The First Amendment is crucially important in protecting free speech and the free exercise of religion, but it in no way protects a librarian’s desire to expose children to sexually explicit content in school libraries, nor does it protect a student’s right to access adult content.  At no time has the U.S. Supreme Court held that the First Amendment protects the inclusion of this type of sexually explicit material in school libraries.

We are urging the New York court to reverse the decision of the Commissioner and to ensure that students are protected from the pornography in these books moving forward.