With its Take Back the Classroom initiative, the California-based Capitol Resource Institute (CRI) is empowering parents with the knowledge and skills they need to remove obscene reading materials from their kids' schools.
Initiative Executive Director Karen England, a transplant from Tennessee, says the Left might label her a book-banner, but she considers herself a volunteer librarian -- and she wants other parents to know they can be the same.
"I'm not trying to ban books. I'm doing nothing different than what a librarian does," she says. "Librarians curate; they decide if a book is legitimate or not to be put in the library. I want to curate books."
Pointing out that this issue concerns "our tax dollars, our kids' hearts and minds, and our public schools," she recently told Washington Watch that she wants parents and local community members to decide what is appropriate for their own kids.
So her activist group has developed a model policy for concerned parents to follow, and its website informs them on state obscenity laws to help guide them to the most effective strategies for where they live.
In 1982, the Supreme Court ruled in Pico vs. Island Trees Union Free School District that before a book can be removed from a school library, the motivation for its removal must be considered.
All 50 states have individual laws addressing obscene material, but the catch is that 43 of them offer exemptions from obscenity laws -- if the material is presented in the name of education.
As England told show host Tony Perkins, "You're not going to get a D.A. to come in and do something, because public libraries, public schools and universities have an exemption in over 40 states."
"You're going to have to challenge the book, and you're going to have to be strategic about it," England said.
With that in mind, the Take Back the Classroom initiative freely provides resources.
"We have a tool kit that talks about the obscenity laws and what you can do and can't do," England detailed. "Our organization will help."
The books with which the CRI takes issue include graphic scenes of rape and incest, among other things. Take Back the Classroom provides excerpts of the objectionable material, as well as the K-12 schools where the books that include them are currently available.
Parents can download the excerpts to read for themselves and present at their local school board meetings.
A successful strategy
After parents become informed and confident to fight the sexualization of their children, England urges them to engage their school boards with open discussion and by simply reading aloud from the explicit books that are in the schools.
"Nothing is clearer than when you read these books," the activist stated. "It's really hard for the Left to defend them. It's that graphic."
Twisting the conservative logic, the Left is retaliating in some areas by pushing for school boards to ban the Bible. As that is up for discussion in Chino Hills, California, that is where England will be this week.
"If you want to challenge the Bible, bring it to the school board," she invites. "Let's talk about why you want to ban it, then let's see which members vote for that."
She told Perkins that this is "a great way for parents to flip their school board to being parent friendly."
Take Back the Classroom currently features for review school districts in eight states. More school districts, states, and books are being added.
