DeSantis, a Republican, said it was "entirely inappropriate" for teachers and school administrators to have conversations with students about their gender identity, saying that, in some schools, children are told "Don't worry, don't pick your gender yet."
According to the legislation, which opponents have dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" bill, school districts "may not encourage discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students." It is not clear what would be considered "age" or "developmentally" appropriate.
In Texas book banning efforts are off the charts. The reality behind these efforts are in no way "grassroots" locally grown efforts. Rather, they are being pushed by far right organizations funded by billionaires and long time Christofascist culture wars veterans whose agenda is not only to ban books but to also siphon funding from public schools and create charter schools run by themselves and their religiously extreme allies. Sadly, the soccer mom's who voted for Youngkn were and likely remain clueless to the fact that they were manipulated by far right deep pockets, many of which are ultimately anything but "pro-family" as they push a vulture capitalism agenda and would shred public funding for education and the social safety net. A lengthy piece in Salon looks at the insidious reality of who is behind the book banning effort and the erasing of blacks, gays and accurate history from public education and public libraries. Here are excerpts:
Until very recently, "book bans" seemed like a term out of the past, or a phenomenon that erupted sporadically in small school or library district in the most conservative areas of the country. But over the last several years, parents' groups aggrieved by the left's alleged influence K-12 education have been working tirelessly to bring them back. All kinds of books have been exiled from library shelves or school curricula in the latest book-ban frenzy, although there's no question that books about slavery, racism and the civil rights movement, along with books about growing up LGBTQ and that community's struggle for equality, are center stage.
This phenomenon has largely been perceived, and framed in media accounts, as a grassroots movement, with local groups of parents or school-board officials leading the brigade in their own towns or neighborhoods. But that may not be the real story. New reporting suggests that certain elements of this broad-based advocacy have been coordinated by some of the country's most influential deep-pockets conservatives, who stand much to gain from fanning the flames of the culture war, even at the most granular levels.
Last week, The Guardian reported that a number of ostensible grassroots groups on the frontlines of the "parental rights" movement have connections to right-wing politicians and donor networks who are highly skilled at "astroturfing" local conflicts on a national scale.
Notable among these groups is Moms for Liberty, a 70,000-member nonprofit with 165 chapters throughout the country. The group is operated by Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice, two former school board members. But according to its articles of incorporation, Moms for Liberty was originally co-founded and co-directed by Bridget Ziegler, the wife of Christian Ziegler, vice chairman of the Florida Republican Party, as Media Matters noted. Marie Rogerson, a former campaign consultant who now serves as the group's director of development, formerly worked for Republican state Rep. Randy Fine, according to Treasure Coast Newspapers. Fine himself has been a central figure in Florida Republicans' crusade against "critical race theory."
Groups like Parents Defending Education and No Left Turn in Education also operate in the same ecosystem and, like Moms for Liberty, have connections to big players in right-wing politics.
Parents Defending Education — a self-described "grassroots organization" promoting "the restoration of a healthy, non-political education for our kids" — is led by Nicole Neily, whose résumé is littered with connections to the Koch brothers. . . . Neily has also served in leadership capacities at the Independent Women's Forum and the Cato Institute, both of which are direct recipients of Koch cash.
At present, nonprofit law does not require nonprofit organizations such as Moms for Liberty to disclose their donors. But in an interview with Salon, Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice . . . "If somebody wants to write me a check to get masks off of kids' faces and to make sure that kids in schools are not being indoctrinated," Justice said, "absolutely, I'm going to take that check."
No Left Turn's funding is, likewise, something a mystery. The group, which had 30 chapters in 23 states as of last June, lists among its supporters numerous high-profile right-wingers, including David Clarke, the pro-Trump former sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, who often speaks at GOP events and has taken money from the National Rifle Association. . . . Other board members include Sharon Slater, president of Family Watch International, an evangelical lobbying nonprofit famous for spreading anti-LGBTQ pseudoscience; and CEO Elana Yaron Fishbein, who reportedly attended a private briefing held by the Heritage Foundation last May with state lawmakers looking to remove "critical race theory" from classrooms, according to NBC News.
In organizing terms, Moms for Liberty, Parents Defending Education and No Left Turn all adhere to a similar formula, as the Guardian noted. In most cases, a parent ostensibly flags a local school for doing something they consider beyond the pale, such as incorporating "controversial" books about gender or sexuality into the curricula. That parent and their allies reach out to one of the aforementioned groups, whose leaders weave the incident into their broader national narrative.
To smoothen this process, some groups provide detailed walkthroughs for parents about how to file open records requests, create press releases, file civil rights complaints and petition school boards.
Taken together, parents' rights groups appear to have a relatively narrow focus: to eradicate what they see as left-wing ideology from public schools. But Dr. Maurice T. Cunningham, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston and the author of "Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization," argues that their real goals are far more ambitious.
"There is absolutely no doubt in my mind — zero — that what groups like Moms for Liberty and Parents Defending Education are doing is structural and aimed at the destruction and ultimate privatization of America's public school system," Cunningham, wrote by email. "These groups are communications operations and highly networked into The Daily Caller, Breitbart [and] Fox News. They have gotten educators fired and attacked online. They want to create chaos," he concluded, "to destroy trust in public education and draw funding away."
Over the past several months, parents rights' groups have turned their attention from poorly-defined academic concepts like "critical race theory" to removing books they deem objectionable. More often than not, these turn out to be written by authors of color and LGTBQ+ authors, or to deal directly with themes of race, sex and gender.
In Texas, this book-banning fever has now reached the state legislature. . . . Meanwhile, students are already protesting against the bans and numerous youth-led activist groups have begun distributing banned books for free.
The issue, he added, goes well beyond angry parents and school boards. "We now also have a political campaign to pass bills barring the discussion of certain topics in schools," he said, "and there's a new wave of bills that is increasingly targeting all kinds of curricular materials or materials in school libraries."
Indeed, over the past several years, state-level Republicans have led a broader effort to control or restrict certain ways and means of teaching about American history, LGBTQ+ rights, sex education and related topics. To this point, 36 states have proposed bills or otherwise moved to restrict "critical race theory" or the instruction of racism and sexism in the classrooms, according to Education Week.
Friedman said these measures won't just impact how kids build their worldviews, but how also they define themselves. "If students don't encounter a book in school," he explained, "they are being deprived of the opportunity to think about alternative identities, or even to find themselves. They're being deprived of the opportunity to feel like they belong."
These groups are vicious and parents need to wake up to the reality that they are being used just as the GOP has used "god, guns, and gays" to get voters to vote against their own best interests.
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