January Editorial Winner

Attempts to censor books are repugnant  

By Kim Poindexter, Tahlequah Daily Press

State Sen. Rob Standridge may have what he deems to be valid reasons for his bill aimed at censorship, but he’s stepping onto turf where he doesn’t belong. 

Standridge’s is just one of several measures that could never past court muster, and probably won’t be heard on the floor, but are aimed at appeasing an extremist segment of the electorate. The trend is growing at both the state and federal levels, and among both Republicans and Democrats, some of whom are in a contest to see who can advance the most radical legislation. A brief perusal of many of these bills would set off alarm bells for anyone remotely familiar with the Constitution. 

Standridge’s bill, at first glance, may seem innocuous; it aims to allow parents to remove from public school shelves any books that address sexual or gender identity, or contain “sexually-graphic” content. But the banning – and burning – of books is always the first step toward an authoritarian government that exerts total control in deciding what information the public can access. Keeping the population ignorant is the best way the government can usurp the public will. 

Standridge claims schools are trying “to indoctrinate students by exposing them to gender, sexual and racial identity curriculums” – a false flag waved by those convinced public schools and universities are little more than nests of card-carrying commie-pinkos. But outright bans on certain books, and giving parents the ability to remove them, worries many legislators – including local ones, who are members of Standridge’s own party. 

The bill would prohibit public school districts, public charter schools, and public school libraries “from having or promoting books that address the study of sex, sexual preference, sexual activity, sexual perversion, sex-based classifications, sexual identity, gender identity, or books that contain content of a sexual nature that a reasonable parent or legal guardian would want to know about or approve of before their child was exposed to it.” Some of those items are politically charged dog whistles; schools don’t carry outrageous literature by modern standards. 

Perhaps more concerning is the clause that if school employees don’t remove an offending book within 30 days after receiving a written request, the employee would be fired and not allowed to work for any school for two years. In other words, Standridge believes state government can decide who teaches at the local level, what they teach, and how they teach it. A heavier hand in terms of government overreach is hard to imagine. 

State Sen. Dewayne Pemberton, R-Muskogee, has a pragmatic approach. A former education administrator, and he says the only time he experienced a push to remove a book was over “To Kill a Mockingbird.” He doesn’t approve of censorship, but also said certain books about gender assignment and identity shouldn’t be available for “students of a certain age.” State Rep. Bob Ed Culver, R-Tahlequah, rightly favors local control and thinks disagreements with curriculum or books should be brought up with school boards. He added that few bills make it to the governor’s desk, saying this one could “open a big can of worms,” and adding that authors of more than half the bills filed “wasted the paper writing them on.” 

There’s an easy answer. If parents don’t want their children exposed to other students of different backgrounds, religions, races, sexual or gender orientation, or those who have ideas and beliefs that differ from their own or offend them, they can home-school those kids. But if they think they can permanently protect their offspring from contact with the nebulous “other,” it is the parents who need education – and a lot of it.