The Texas Board of Education said school libraries must first ‘[r]ecognize that parents are the primary decision makers regarding their student's access to library material.’
Texas — The Texas state board of education last week voted to approve new guidelines to reassert parental rights and prohibit “harmful” books in school libraries.
On Wednesday, the Texas Board of Education voted 13-1 in favor of a new set of guidelines to ensure school children are protected from offensive content. The move comes after Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott earlier this year signed into law a new bill requiring book sellers to rate books for appropriateness, KXAN reported.
Abbott signed the Restricting Explicit and Adult-Designated Educational Resources (READER) Act in June along with a slate of other measures designed to secure parental rights and protect kids from sexualization and radical transgender ideology.
Reporting in June, The Texas Tribune noted that the measure would force booksellers “to assign ratings to books based on the presence of depictions or references to sex.”
In guidance approved last week, the Texas Board of Education approved guidance requiring that library collection development policies must first “[r]ecognize that parents are the primary decision makers regarding their student’s access to library material.”
Moreover, such policies must “[p]rohibit the possession, acquisition, and purchase of harmful material, as defined by Penal Code, §43.24, library material rated sexually explicit material by the selling library material vendor under Education Code, §35.002, or library material that is pervasively vulgar or educationally unsuitable as referenced in Pico v. Board of Education, 457 U.S. 853 (1982).”
The guidance also contains language to ensure that books are restricted from school libraries based on their content, not “solely on the ideas contained in the material or the personal background of the author of the material or characters…”
The document further calls on schools to “[r]ecognize that obscene content is not protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
The bill’s author, Plano Republican Rep. Jared Patterson, said during the regular legislative session that the measure refrained from “attaching any religious, political or cultural belief” and exclusively works to protect “unaccompanied minors in Texas public schools” from accessing “explicit books,” KXAN reported.
Audrey Young, a Texas Board of Education member, said the Wednesday approval of the new guidelines had been “a work of deep value and importance to bring the library standards to fruition,” The Federalist reported.
“In Texas, parents have been identifying this issue to schools without the necessary support of law,” Young said.
And the passage of new laws protecting kids and reasserting parental rights wasn’t the only significant precursor to the new guidelines handed down by the Texas board of education members last week.
The Federalist noted that the Texas State Library & Archives Commission in August severed its relationship with the American Library Association. Republican state Rep. Brian Harrison argued that the AL “works against parents by fighting to keep pornographic materials in public libraries under the guise of opposing ‘censorship.’”
The outlet observed that all of the books on the ALA’s list of the 13 “most challenged” titles of 2022 “feature sexually explicit material, and some are nothing less than pornographic.”
As LifeSiteNews has reported, revelations concerning the extent of LGBT indoctrination and sexually explicit materials in public (and private) schools have galvanized parents in recent years, triggering an energetic grassroots movement to secure parental rights in the classroom, protect children, and hold school districts accountable.
Per data from PEN America, during the 2022–2023 school year, 153 districts in 33 states advanced measures to prohibit books determined to be offensive for minors, The Nebraska Examiner reported.
(Article by Ashley Sadler republished from lifesitenews.com)
По материалам: http://www.planet-today.com/2023/12/protecting-parental-rights.html