Image Credit: Rutherford County Schools
The Tennessee Conservative [By Olivia Lupia] –
The Rutherford County School Board appears to be following suit of Montgomery and Wilson counties, ordering a removal of approximately 150 titles from school library shelves flagged as explicitly sexual according to Tennessee’s updated Age-Appropriate Materials Act of 2022.
The board has pulled 35 books since February of this year but the debate became particularly heated over the removal of six titles last month before this most recent mass purge.
Republican board member Caleb Tidwell has been the primary driving force initiating review of many of the titles and has continually argued that banning the titles is not a violation of the First Amendment as some opponents have claimed, and fellow board member Frances Rosales flagged the 150 titles under the obscenity laws.
These efforts have earned support from many parents and community members, with several reiterating Tidwell’s certainty that removing access for children to sexually explicit content in no way violates the First Amendment.
One resident commented, “I do not think that shielding children from sexually explicit material is frivolous. I completely deny that and I reject that claim. This matters and this matters for children. The First Amendment does not prevent school officials from determining that the permission of sexually explicit language, and vulgar or lewd speech undermines the school’s basic educational mission. Additionally, the First Amendment also does not permit a teacher or librarian to introduce sexually explicit material to children.”
Conversely, the removal list sparked protest from other board members, school librarians, and other “free speech” organizations.
According to board member Butch Vaughn, the district is still awaiting clarification from the state about moving forward with other removals, referring to the board’s request for a legal opinion from the State Attorney General (AG) earlier this fall. He also suggested the law itself is too vague and even compared the “book bans” to 1930s Germany.
“This problem needs to go back to the state legislature. This is where it came from, and that’s what’s causing everything. This discord, among this board, among our community, it all came from this sorry law. It needs to be revisited and done correctly,” he said.
One school librarian called the book removals “heartbreaking” because she believes that at the current rate, the district could, “end up with nothing on the shelves for our students to read.”
Ken Paulson, Director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University believes, “The law can and will be challenged, and I’m certain it will not survive.” And reportedly, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is also contemplating legal action against the board, though they have not taken any definitive steps at this time.
Many districts continue to ask for guidance from the state attorney on interpretation of the Age-Appropriate Materials law as many communities battle amongst themselves over the removal or preservation of certain titles and how best to protect, or in some cases expose, children to explicit materials.
Rutherford County’s board attorney Jeff Reed hopes to have an answer from the AG’s office by the end of the year.
Olivia Lupia is a political refugee from Colorado who now calls Tennessee home. A proud follower of Christ, she views all political happenings through a Biblical lens and aims to utilize her knowledge and experience to educate and equip others. Olivia is an outspoken conservative who has run for local office, managed campaigns, and been highly involved with state & local GOPs, state legislatures, and other grassroots organizations and movements. Olivia can be reached at olivia@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
6 Responses
There is nothing in the First Amendment about having rights to other people’s money to buy the pornography you want to present to their children. Distribution of pornography to minors has long been a crime for all Tennesseans EXCEPT for the public school system. Putting the publicly-funded school system on the same footing as the rest of the state is not a “sorry law”, it has removed the 14th Amendment violation of equal protection under the law that existed with the public school system being able to contribute to the deliquency of minors with zero consequences.
The dissembling show by Rosales (whose husband claimed he voted for Butch Vaughn on social media, despite not living in the right district to do so) and Vaughn to “overwhelm” with the review of books (why were they never reviewed before?) isn’t going to work.
AMEN!! Why I call it lucifer’s pubic ejikashun.
This is so ridiculous. The real problem is that “education” is EXEMPT from pornography. No one seems to question that. The legislators did manage to avoid that issue, which begs many questions…
SO, just ask if the book in question would be illegal for children OUTSIDE the school. Duh. That means the book “Gender Queer” WOULD be illegal as it has explicit sexual language and PICTURES.
Maybe the question is, “Do we really want grown men and women who do not know what age-appropriate means dealing with school children at any level? “
And yet, per my FOIA request, Knox County has removed ZERO books. But they have a procedure now.
It would be awesome to have some of the content of these books to read to our lib friends and watch them cringe
Check out John Amanchukwu videos.
https://youtu.be/R_ygvGYXP9g?