Texas School District Pulls LGBT Books from Library Shelves, Gets a Shock Notice from Biden Administration
Confuse and conquer. That’s the strategy employed by progressives to entangle the most vulnerable and valuable — our schoolchildren — in the web of their radical agenda. The strategy is designed to cause either division or, preferably, conformity.
A North Texas school district whose superintendent was secretly recorded ordering librarians to remove LGBT-themed library books has been targeted by the U.S. Education Department’s civil rights enforcement arm, according to NBC News.
A July complaint by the ACLU promoted the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights to open an investigation on Dec. 6. The complaint accused the Granbury Independent School District of violating a federal law that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender. Granbury is about an hour’s drive southwest of Dallas.
An investigation published in March by NBC News, ProPublica, and The Texas Tribune fueled the ACLU complaint. Investigative reporting revealed that Granbury’s superintendent, Jeremy Glenn, instructed librarians to remove books dealing with sexual orientation and people who are transgender.
This is the first case directly tied to the nationwide movement seeking to ban books with topics on sexuality and gender, according to NBC.
The Office for Civil Rights alerted Granbury officials that it is invoking Title IX to investigate violations of federal law that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender, according to the Washington Examiner.
Glenn allegedly discriminated against LGBT material in a leaked recording verified by multiple news outlets. “I acknowledge that there are men that think they’re women and there are women that think they’re men,” Glenn told librarians during a January meeting. “I don’t have any issues with what people want to believe, but there’s no place for it in our libraries.”
Glenn later told the librarians that he was focused on removing books geared toward queer students. “It’s the transgender, LGBTQ, and the sex — sexuality — in books,” he said in the leaked recording.
An outspoke conservative, Glenn reportedly told librarians that their school board was now “very, very conservative” and that any employee holding opposing political views “better hide it. He added, “Here in this community, we’re going to be conservative.” The district has reportedly removed 130 titles that featured LGBT characters and/or themes.
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Conservative parents and politicians across Texas had been pressuring districts for months to remove books that contain explicit descriptions of sex from school libraries. Several young adult novels were labeled as “pornography.” Those calling for the books’ removal have repeatedly said they are concerned only with sex and vulgarity, not with suppressing the views of LGBT students and authors.
Glenn made a similar argument during his closed-door meeting with librarians in Granbury. “I don’t want a kid picking up a book, whether it’s about homosexuality or heterosexuality, and reading about how to hook up sexually in our libraries.”
ACLU attorney Chloe Kempf responded, “These comments, combined with the book removals, really send a message to LGBTQ students in the districts that: ‘You don’t belong here. Your existence is shameful. It should be censored,'” as reported by the Examiner.
Book removals directly creating a hostile environment for a particular group of students is a novel argument that will be tested in court. “It’s certainly the first investigation I’ve seen by the agency testing that argument in this way,” W. Scott Lewis, a managing partner at consulting firm TNG, told NBC.
If Glenn is found to have violated students’ rights, the Granbury school district can be required to make policy changes and submit to federal monitoring.
The question for the courts to answer is whose civil rights are being violated? Better yet, whose natural rights are being violated?
In 1689, in his Second Treatise of Government, John Locke, whose writing heavily influenced the U.S. Constitution, wrote that all individuals are equal in the sense that they are born with certain “inalienable” natural rights. These rights are God-given and can never be taken or even given away.
Do these inalienable rights include imposing fantasy on reality? When a male feels like a woman does this make him a woman? If a woman feels like a cat, does it make her a leopard?
Do the inalienable rights include promoting sexual promiscuity in public schools? Or is sex a private matter that should be dealt with in the privacy of one’s bedroom?
Finally, is it up to the federal government to determine reality or has God already done that?
These are valid questions. Will they be given fair consideration? I have my doubts. Supreme Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was unable to define a woman during her Senate confirmation hearings.
The progressive confuse and conquer campaign has infiltrated our highest court. It is in our churches. It is in our schools. But take heart.
For Christians, it is a good time to be alive. Your mettle is being tested. As is your faith and your determination to protect your children from whatever is wicked that this way comes.
It’s a time for heroes to take back our institutions. When it comes to schools, parents are on the front lines. The soul of the country depends on them and those who support them.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
