> Any material used in a classroom, made available in a school library, or included on a reading list contains content that is pornographic or prohibited under s. 847.012, is not suited to student needs and their ability to comprehend the material presented, or is inappropriate for the grade level and age group for which the material is used. --Text from the bill.
"Inappropriate for the grade level" is so ambiguous that there's basicly no way for people to know if a book is OK or not. Ambiguous laws create fear and paranoia, as ordinary people are unsure if they're in violation of them. This has been a bit of a trend in bills of this nature proposed and passed under DeSantis; the "Don't Say Gay" bill had a similar issue.
The law seems a bit extreme, but as a parent, I really don't want my kids reading about sex, or encountering pornographic material in school. In high school, maybe it's debatable, but K-8 I really don't think it's appropriate.
Great, then don't allow your student to read such materials at school. Your values shouldn't preclude others from being able to access information and knowledge.
Honestly, I'd be surprised if a law doesn't already exist to remove most pornographic books from school. I never found any erotic book before 16 (except with '1984' and 'when I was 5 I killed myself' but you have to be deranged to think it was erotica/pornographic), and even then it was more suggesting than showing. Most of them were historical books too. I'm not ot from the US however.
Anyway, like I said the first time: if you're a teacher, do not lend books to other people kids. Even (especially) theater or classics. Avoid troubles. Worst case : your and your friends' kids will be advantaged.
At one end is obscenity: legally-defined material unprotected by the First Amendment. At the other end is a list of books presently boycotted by a nascent movement of observers and moral surveilers. This story is about that boycott hitting an inflection point in both organization and political support.
It’s clear that some groups wish ideas outside their norms would conveniently be labeled as obscenity.
I don’t know if it’s settled that a teacher in a public school has a First Amendment right to talk about a book that’s banned. In America, a teacher is not always protected from being fired. This is more explicit in private schools, where policy of religion or tradition overrules the First Amendment.
Whereas most states have deferred to their school boards, in Florida, this is being decided at the state level. The article above is about the chaos as school boards cannot give meaningful judgements for teachers. We see the bureaucracy now necessary to judge content is itself neither transparent as nor scrutinized to the depth of the banned books.
I expect some of these forces will admonish a teacher who, for example, takes a stand against some of the prevailing misinformation of our time:
- The Holocaust did occur, is significant, and was witnessed by millions. It needed Hitler plus broad assent by Germans.
- While slavery has been understood in every society and practiced by most, it was institutionalized and promoted by few during the Enlightenment, most notably the leaders of the agribusiness colonies of America.
- Even if you don’t agree with people simply because they’re not heterosexual, you must recognize that the least-healthy sexuality is the kind that preys on the vulnerable. Perhaps any amount of attention paid to adults who are no risk to children is a distraction benefiting predators who seek positions of power like sports coach or priest.
But I think we’ll sooner see a First Amendment challenge about you last point. It won’t be as simple as “don’t lend books to kids” but rather:
- don’t talk about the banned book list, or test the waters with uncleared new ones
- don’t generate public info about your opinions on litigious topics. Over the years, to keep your job, you might be disadvantaged when compared to a new hire without that paper trail.
- relatedly, try to think ahead: certain topics that seem sanitized today might become a taboo of focus. In a kids book, Sam might have a robot friend. Don’t take a chance that your proximity to this book becomes a problem if, in the future bureaucracy, it’s a problem if Sam loves a robot.
Power is the ability to affect reality. Since information is the tangible artifact of congealed ideas, it only stands to reason that access to information is one of among many levers power is able to control - it's a crucial mechanism in legitimization stage of building reality along with framing, idea synthesis, &c.
Agreed, along these lines the world is still coming to grips with what it means when white collar workers from Silicon Valley have so much power on what information to discourage.
Just keep books of the type that were in the libraries from 2010 and before.
The left wants books like "Adam and Adam Conceived a Child Because Both Men Got Pregnant Through Their Penises" and "Kill All the White Men in the World" and all that. The left wants that, and the right does not.
On the other side, the right might want to put books like "I Love the KKK" and "Men Do Construction Work, Women Don't" and all that. The right wants that, and the left does not.
So how about putting in uncontroversial books into libraries. Both sides can indoctrinate their own children however they want via the internet.
Otherwise, I get to put in my own hard-core porn books into school libraries, complete with pictures of the Cleveland Steamer and Dirty Sanchez, BD/SM, Furry role play and all that.
"Inappropriate for the grade level" is so ambiguous that there's basicly no way for people to know if a book is OK or not. Ambiguous laws create fear and paranoia, as ordinary people are unsure if they're in violation of them. This has been a bit of a trend in bills of this nature proposed and passed under DeSantis; the "Don't Say Gay" bill had a similar issue.