Texas state education leaders voted 13-1 on Wednesday to keep “sexually explicit” books out of school libraries.
According to the Dallas Morning News, the Texas Board of Education approved guidelines requiring school libraries to implement policies prohibiting inappropriate books. The rule requires local libraries to recognize parents as the “primary decision makers regarding their student’s access to library material” and bar the “possession, acquisition, and purchase of harmful material” such as “sexually explicit” content.
“It was a work of deep value and importance to bring the library standards to fruition,” said Audrey Young, a member of the Texas Board of Education. “In Texas, parents have been identifying this issue to schools without the necessary support of law.”
In August, the Texas State Library & Archives Commission (TSLAC) cut ties with the American Library Association (ALA) over the group’s aggressive far-left agenda. Republican State Rep. Brian Harrison called on his state’s Library and Archives Commission to join other states disassociating from the ALA in July over its “Marxist ideology.” In April last year, the ALA elected a self-professed “Marxist lesbian” as the association’s new president.
“The ALA works against parents by fighting to keep pornographic materials in public libraries under the guise of opposing ‘censorship,'” Harrison wrote this summer. “The ALA’s ‘Office for Intellectual Freedom,’ states that libraries can’t remove inappropriate books because ‘children and teens have the right to find the information they choose’ and ‘no one has the right to make rules restricting what other people use, or to make decisions for other families.’ This means the ALA may be undermining Texas statues designed to protect children.”
In April, the ALA published a list of 13 books it ranked the “most challenged” books of 2022, celebrating “the brave authors whose work challenges readers with stories that disrupt the status quo.” All the books on the list feature sexually explicit material, and some are nothing less than pornographic. As The Daily Signal noted, all 13 books are “marketed to teenagers and young adults.”
Texas Rep. Harrison celebrated the state separation in August.
“Less than one month after I requested the Texas State Library & Archives Commission to cut ties with the American Library Association,” Harrison wrote, “I am excited to report that they just informed me they will not renew their contract with them!”
In at least eight other states, state library groups have either severed ties with the ALA already or been urged to do so by state lawmakers.
In August, leaders from more than a dozen conservative groups representing millions of Americans penned a joint statement calling on state leaders to sever ties with the ALA.
“The ALA’s deliberate hostility towards religious Americans and its obsession with the promotion of gender ideology to children are especially concerning,” they wrote, “because of its de facto status as the umbrella organization that controls programming and organizational support for state, local, and religious library associations across the country.”
