Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #3147 - California Bans Book Bans!
Another post in my series censorship, but unlike all the bad news on the book bans and suppressive efforts by the Radical Right, this one is good news.
Governor Gavin Newsome of California and other smart people BANNED book bans.
There will be and can be no book bans in California.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Monday aimed at fighting school censorship. The new law, AB 1078, allows the state to impose fines on school boards that remove textbooks or library materials because they portray LGBTQ+ people or other marginalized groups. The bill is a response to censorship attempts pursued by rightwing California school board members who’ve been itching to join Republicans’ national book banning craze.
Newsom earlier this year threatened to fine the school board in Temecula, California, after it voted to get rid of a state-approved social studies curriculum that included references to Harvey Milk, California’s first openly gay elected official, who was assassinated in 1978 after refusing to be invisible on the San Francisco City Council. Milk wasn’t actually named in the textbook, but supplementary materials for teachers mentioned him, which we guess the school board members thought might somehow infect children with gay cooties.
Yes, that’s the case where the school board president, Joseph Komrosky, baselessly slandered Milk, asking at a board meeting, “My question is, why even mention a pedophile?” After a few months, the board eventually did approve the curriculum.
Politico points out that the Temecula episode led the Newsom administration to request another provision in the law that will “charge districts for replacement textbooks when they fail to purchase curriculum aligning with state anti-discrimination laws.”
In video posted to Xitter, Newsom signed the bill and thanked its sponsor, Assemblymember Corey Jackson, saying,
“Remarkable that we’re living in a country right now in this banning binge, this cultural purge that we’re experiencing all throughout America and now increasingly here in the state of California where we have school districts large and small banning books, banning free speech, criminalizing librarians and teachers. We want to do more than just push back rhetorically against that, and that’s what this legislation provides.”
California is banning book bans and textbook censorship in our schools.
In partnership with @AsmCoreyJackson and @TonyThurmond, we’re cementing CA's role as the true freedom state: a place where families—not political fanatics—have the freedom to decide what’s right. pic.twitter.com/0br2MQN2rm
The new law makes California the second state to ban book banning, after Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed a similar bill in June. The Illinois law will withhold state funding from public libraries that restrict access to materials “because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.” Unlike several red states’ attempts to make censorship more common, the Illinois law doesn’t threaten to put anyone in jail.
As Politico explains, California school boards have always had to comply with the state’s anti-discrimination laws and curricular guidelines, but those laws lacked the teeth of a financial penalty for noncompliance.
Backed by state schools Superintendent Tony Thurmond, the new law will allow the superintendent to determine whether a district has failed to comply with state curriculum laws, giving the official power to review complaints that would have first had to go through county boards of education in the past.
That perceived interference from the state led the California School Boards Association to oppose the bill, claiming it “authorizes unfettered state intervention before a school district is made aware of a complaint” or has a chance to address the problem itself. Considering that the censorship attempts have mostly been coming from the school boards themselves, we aren’t sure that’s a serious objection.
So hooray for Gavin Newsom, and yes, for Gov. Pritzker in Illinois, and let’s hope other states take action to protect the freedom to read, please!
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2309.30 - 10:10
- Days ago = 3011 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
Yes, yes, the series finale made Lyra and Bon Bon official, just roll with it. The other four suspects are officially ‘good friends,’ but come on.
Public school librarians in Florida’s Charlotte County School District were ordered by their superintendent to completely cleanse the district’s libraries of all books containing LGBTQ+ “characters or themes,” in an effort to enforce Florida’s “Parental Rights In Education, Just Not For Gay Parents Or Parents Of Gay Kids” Act, AKA “Don’t Say Gay.”
As Judd Legum reports in his Popular Information newsletter, Superintendent Mark Vianello offered the “guidance” to Charlotte County school librarians in conversation that was transcribed in a July 24 document obtained by the nonprofit Florida Freedom to Read Project through a public records request. Vianello and the school board’s attorney, Michael McKinley, answered librarians’ questions about what amount of gay is allowed in the schools’ libraries. The answer came back quite clearly: Zero LGBT+ tolerance.
[Q:] Are we removing books from any school or media center, PreK-12 if a character has, for example, two mothers or because there is a gay best friend or a main character is gay?
Vianello: Yes.
Vianello also offered helpful corrections to any misperceptions, like the idea that books with LGBTQ+ characters might somehow be allowed if the characters don’t engage in any activities that might be considered even remotely “sexual,” like kissing or joining a softball team.
[Q:] Novels to be used in courses or in the media centers with LBGTQ+ characters are acceptable as long as they do not have explicit sex scenes or sexual descriptions and are not approaching "how to" manuals for how to be an LGBTQ+ person. [underlined in original — Dok]
Vianello: No. Books with LBGTQ+ characters are not to be included in classroom libraries or school library media centers.
As Legum explains, the librarians were trying to make sense of a revised version of the Florida Department of Education’s “Principles of Professional Conduct” for educators. That document was updated earlier this year to expand the “Don’t Say Gay” rules beyond the 2022 law’s initial scope, which banned “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity” in Pre-K through third grade, but only required that such materials be age or developmentally “appropriate” for higher grades.
The new conduct rules, in accord with an updated law passed by the Florida Lege and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in May, specify that educators “Shall not intentionally provide classroom instruction to students in prekindergarten through grade 8 on sexual orientation or gender identity,” except where other laws may require it. High schoolers — at least when not watching porn on their phones — are similarly shielded from any classroom mention of “sexual orientation or gender identity,” unless state standards require it, or if they’re in a health or sex-ed class that the student’s parent can opt them out of.
DeSantis has gotten very pissy whenever anyone suggests that the law forbids any mention at all of gay people or that it’s leading to book banning. He insists that such claims are a “hoax,” even though it’s exactly what’s happening in school districts all over Florida. Rather, he proclaimed, the law was needed to eliminate
pornographic and inappropriate materials that have been snuck into our classrooms and libraries to sexualize our students violate our state education standards.
Funny thing: in practice, schools all over the state are removing everything, although it appears Charlotte County Schools are the first to actually put it in writing anywhere. Here’s another fun librarian scenario, which we especially enjoyed because Vianello so sharply points out the librarian’s wrongthink in framing the question at all:
[Q:] If a student asks a teacher about a gay character in a novel being studied, and neither gender [identity or] sexual orientation is part of the standards for that course, the teacher will instruct the student to ask that question of their parents and will direct the conversation back to the standards of the course as they relate to the novel being studied.
Vianello: Correct, but again, novels with gay characters are not to be included in classroom libraries — “err on the side of caution.” Sexual orientation/gender identity is prohibited in Pre-K — grade 8. For 9-12, no as well, unless supported by the state academic standards.
Well sure, teachers should of course refer such questions to parents, but they won’t have to because there will be no gay characters anyway. Notice also that “err on the side of caution,” which translates to a mandate to pull any book that you even suspect has LGBTQ+ characters or themes. No Rainbows Anywhere.
(We’d have added “no points for Hufflepuff,” but we honestly aren’t sure whether JK Rowling’s retroactive decision that Dumbledore is gay means Charlotte County pulled the most popular YA series ever written, or if it’s being kept since she’s turned out to be a transphobic crank.)
The blanket erasure of LGBTQ+ content envisioned by the Charlotte County Schools leadership isn’t simply limited to books in the library or in teachers’ classroom libraries. Even books kids might bring from home must be subject to the Inquisition. Nothing chilling about this answer:
[Q:] Teachers need to be aware of what their students are reading for silent sustained reading in class, or book reports, or anything involving instruction, even if it is student-selected to ensure they are not violating this rule. In other words, to ensure LGBTQ characters or themes do not exist — or can they exist, but not cross into pornographic territory?
Vianello: These characters and themes cannot exist.
This is eerily similar to an exchange between Winston Smith and O’Brien in George Orwell’s 1984:
“Does Big Brother exist?”
“Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother if the embodiment of the Party.”
“Does he exist like you or me?”
“You do not exist,” said O’Brien.
Gosh, why are those liberal whiners complaining about “LGBTQ+ erasure”? That’s impossible, because in Charlotte County Schools, these characters and themes cannot exist, so there’s nothing to erase.
Legum notes that, as with the banning of the Gay Penguin Book (Wonkette cut link), that a lot of school districts are going well beyond what Florida educational officials claim are the limits of the “Don’t Say Gay” law, which the Florida Attorney General’s Office has said in legal filings “does not even arguably restrict library books.” In Lake County, that was enough to return the gay penguins to school library shelves, although the book remains banned in other districts.
The Florida Department of Education has been no help at all; after releasing the conduct rules, it has left school districts and their attorneys to guess at what’s allowed and what isn’t, leading administrators to say they must “err on the side of caution” to avoid getting sued, which could result in heavy fines and loss of teaching credentials.
Legum notes in an update that a spokesperson for Charlotte County Schools sent a statement to “clarify” the district’s policy:
Books featuring LGBTQ characters are accessible in the media center for grades 9-12. While they may not be utilized for classroom instruction, these books are available for individual study and can be borrowed by students. The document … served as a training resource, and the discussion accompanying it provided further guidance to educators.
We still have questions, though. For starters, what about nonfiction books for PreK through eighth grade? Obviously, no biographies of LGBTQ people, but do books about the space program have to be pulled if they include a mention of Sally Ride, NASA’s first woman astronaut? She seems like a prime example of a “character” who needs to be banned solely for her identity, even if she didn’t make it public until she died. Does the ban extend to LGBTQ+ authors like that Whitman fellow and all his singing of himself — again, nothing explicit in his poetry, but gloriously gay as all get out.
For that matter, will middle schoolers be forbidden from reading “news papers” (we hear they still exist) to ensure they never see the name of the US secretary of Transportation? Ask your parents about those airline regulations, kids, the end.
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2309.29 - 10:10
- Days ago =3010 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
