School boards across America are being invaded by groups like Moms for Liberty and republican state superintendents of education who are destroying the American public school system, and our kids.
Here’s the transcript of a speech on Book Banning / Censorship of Ideas by Luke Lippit and his friends. This speech was delivered at an Orchard Park Board of Education meeting.
The speech is in italics and starts here:
Today, I come on behalf of teachers and students, and 92% of Americans who oppose the banning of books.
I shouldn’t be here, and I don’t want to be here. I should be doing my homework or hanging out with my friends, yet I’m standing here in front of you all in opposition to the outrageous efforts to suppress and censor ideas and to defend the right of my peers to decide for themselves what they are capable of reading.
We see a small group of parents that represent only about 8% (EIGHT PERCENT!) of Americans, trying to dictate what the young adults of other parents can read.
Think about that. A group of parents with an obvious political agenda, slamming and challenging books that go against their “personal and political values”.
I would like to ask those who are so worried about these books, “What gives you the right to tell other parents what their young adults are capable of reading based on your definitions of obscene and pornographic?”
Obscene books must go through three criteria as defined by the supreme court case Miller v California:
(1) whether the average person applying contemporary community standards would find the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.
(2) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way with no literary context, sexual conduct.
(3) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
I’d like to outline the key phrase “Taken as a whole”.
These pieces of literature are being taken out of context, using small excerpts and lines that totally disregard the full meaning and message of the book.
Don’t let these small sentences be pulled out of these books and lead you to believe that they’re meant to “indoctrinate our children” with pornographic and “obscene” material, because we can’t stand up here in 3 minutes and read the entire book to show you that every single book on this list has a deeper meaning.
I have no problem with parents setting boundaries with their young adults about what they should and shouldn’t read, but they have no right to extend that to 1200 other students.
It’s funny because none of these books are even in the curriculum! Nobody is forcing anyone to check out and read these books.
These books are only just in our library, waiting for someone who desperately needs one of them to check it out.
Your young adult, who you are so worried about, doesn’t even know these books exist, unless they desperately need them.
All you’re doing by challenging these books is making them attractive to young adults and others.
This brings me to my next point. Have any of you read these entire books?
These parents are not trying to protect us. They do not care about us. They only care about censoring ideas that they disagree with and pushing a political agenda.
How many young adults do you see up here calling for the banning of books?
I am a student. I speak as a student and for students. Don’t come into my school and tell me what I am and am not capable of reading because you see it as a sensitive topic. You don’t get to define that for me, nor do you get to define it for any of my peers.
I am just a student. I just want the freedom to read about sensitive topics that will expose me to the real world.
I want to be able to find my peers to be able to find comfort in and learn from books that talk about sensitive topics.
THESE BOOKS SAVE LIVES.
Please don’t take that away from us.
I would like to express my great appreciation for the dedication and commitment of this board.
Thank you for all your time.
End of speech.
Use this template for going up against school boards that are considering banning books and censoring ideas.
Visit their website Students Protecting Education and consider donating to their Support Students Protecting Education mission.
This was a huge victory for students across the country. It was also a win for the students of Orchard Park, as the Superintendent also reiterated his support for maintaining the policy. On Tuesday, students beat extremist groups working to slowly strip rights away. And we’d do it again! Students Protecting Education continues to grow larger and larger, with more opportunity to promote diversity and equity in our schools every. single. day.