Posted on 12/20/2023 2:15:15 PM PST by Morgana
A police officer searched a Massachusetts middle school after someone reported that a book with explicit material was being read in an eighth-grade classroom.
The plain-clothes cop was reportedly wearing a bodycam when he entered W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School in Great Barrington.
The officer was looking for the graphic novel, Gender Queer: A Memoir, after police received a complaint on December 8 about 'concerning illustrations' in the book.
Great Barrington Police Chief Paul Storti said the person who made the complaint provided an image that showed illustrated characters in sexual acts.
The officer was escorted by school officials during the search but did not find the book.
The school district has apologized for how it handled the incident, saying it does not support book banning.
The book by author Maia Kobabe, who uses 'e/em/eir' pronouns, explores gender and sexual identity from an adolescent's perspective. According to publisher Simon & Schuster, 'it started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual.'
The school's principal Miles Wheat told Boston.com the book is not included in the curriculum, but a teacher had made it available in her classroom.
The American Civil Liberties Union expressed concern over the incident and has requested the bodycam footage.
Managing attorney with the ACLU Ruth Buorquin told The Berkshire Eagle that 'Police going into schools and searching for books is the sort of thing you hear about in communist China and Russia.'
The graphic novel has previously sparked backlash, particularly after a Louisiana lawmaker read explicit passages out loud during a Senate hearing.
Senator John Kennedy, 71, read aloud from Gender Queer during the hearing because it is currently allowed in Illinois schools.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
“The American Civil Liberties Union expressed concern over the incident and has requested the bodycam footage”
The anti-American Civil liberties union can piss up a rope....I wouldn’t give ‘em squat
Having "gender queer" books available in a school classroom is the sort of thing you hear about in Weimar Germany. And we know how that worked out.
It sounds as if torching the school itself--putting the teacher out of a job deluding and torturing children--might be more effective.
Police entering kids classrooms looking for banned books isn’t a good look.
This might be a clue.
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“W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School “
Named after a communist.
We have people right here on this very forum who don’t have the intellectual capacity to understand that a book isn’t “banned” because people who actually care about the well being of youngsters don’t want it to be made available to, or read aloud by an adult to kids who are 13 years old.
It is material that should be provided by adult parents if they feel a need to do so, but parents (or Freepers) who would advocate that are not only not conservative in any way, but should be viewed as potential child predators.
Unbelievable.
Agree 💯
Great Barrington isn’t exactly filled with people of color.
It is full of wing nuts.
One of the tragedies that negatively impacted the black community in this country is the rejection of Booker T. Washington’s views on the integration of blacks into society at large in favor of the views of the reprehensible W.E.B. Du Bois.
Just check the teacher’s bookshelf, no doubt you’d find a signed copy.
Leftwing lunatic teachers acting on behalf of the government grooming impressionable school kids into the LGBTQ lifestyle looks way worse. Way worse.
No books like that were found though.
Too police statey for me.
I'd bet she's OK with censoring COVID information from social media though.
I’m betting the ACLU is going to ignore this….
Residents complain that ‘call to prayer’ is too loud
http://www.thehamtramckreview.com/residents-complain-that-call-to-prayer-is-too-loud/
But I’ll bet if a Christian Preacher did the same they’d be ready to burn the church down.
Maybe the school was tipped off....kids could easily surreptitiously record it. It would be very bad for the school. Could teacher be considered sexually harassing the students if students don’t want to hear the text? Could the school be liable for allowing the teacher to do that? If a man in a school starts reading porno to a girl against her will, that is harassment.
These things can be dealt with without having police raid the classrooms looking for objectionable material.
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