North Texas School District That Secretly Removed LGBTQ+ Books Now Being Investigated

Granbury Independent School District superintendent Jeremy Glenn was recorded telling librarians successful the North Texas libraries nether his purview to region books that dealt with “transgender, LGBTQ and… sexuality.”

In the leaked recording, he’s heard saying “I admit that determination are men that deliberation they’re women and determination are women that deliberation they’re men. I don’t person immoderate issues with what radical privation to believe, but there’s nary spot for it successful our libraries.”

The ACLU filed a complaint successful July connected the ground that his orders interruption Title IX, a national instrumentality that protects students from being discriminated against based connected sex oregon intersexual orientation.

Granbury schoolhouse officials were notified connected Dec. 6th that they were being investigated by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights due to the fact that of the ACLU’s July complaint. Amid a question of discriminatory publication bans, this probe appears to beryllium the archetypal national 1 to code the issue, but determination whitethorn soon beryllium others.

The manager of escaped look and acquisition astatine PEN America, Jonathan Friedman, has tracked thousands of publication bans and has said “It’s not uncommon to spot radical explicitly saying that they privation to region LGBTQ books due to the fact that they judge they are indoctrinating students.”

North Texas isn’t caller to these bigoted complaints and districts different than Granbury person besides travel nether the national government’s radar. Over the past year, the Office for Civil Rights has opened 5 investigations into reports of favoritism successful the Carroll Independent School District successful Southlake, a territory that has fought implicit however issues similar sexuality, racism, and sex are taught successful schools.

The publication removals and complaints person taken their toll connected marginalized students. Lou Whiting, a nonbinary pupil astatine Granbury High School who has organized protests successful the past, said that they felt unsafe astatine school, but the national probe brings hope: “It’s conscionable truly bully to perceive that determination are radical who are listening to america and really doing thing astir it. It means a batch to perceive that our efforts meant something.”

Find much quality and stories of involvement from the publication satellite in Breaking successful Books.