US Education Department investigates removal of LGBTQ books - KSAT San Antonio

GRANDBURY, Texas – The removal of LGBTQ-themed books from the room of the Granbury, Texas, schoolhouse territory is nether probe by the U.S. Department of Education's civilian rights division.

“The Office for Civil Rights tin corroborate that determination is an unfastened probe into Granbury ISD nether Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972," according to a connection Tuesday from the Education Department. "We bash not remark connected pending investigations.”

Title IX has prohibitions against discriminating connected the ground of sex, sex and intersexual orientation.

The investigation, archetypal reported by NBC News, ProPublica and the Texas Tribune, follows a ailment by the American Civil Liberties Union. It appears to beryllium the archetypal based connected a nationwide question pushed by conservatives to prohibition schoolhouse room books dealing with sexuality and gender.

“It’s surely the archetypal probe I’ve seen by the bureau investigating that statement successful this way,” said W. Scott Lewis, managing spouse astatine TNG, a consulting steadfast that advises schoolhouse districts connected complying with national civilian rights laws.

Since aboriginal 2021, publication challenges and bans person reached levels not seen successful decades, according to officials astatine the American Library Association, the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) and different advocates for escaped expression.

Censorship efforts person ranged from local communities specified arsenic Orange County, Florida, wherever the graphic caller “Gender Queer: A Memoir” was removed from precocious schoolhouse shelves and a Tennessee schoolhouse board’s pulling Art Spiegelman’s graphic caller “Maus,” to statewide initiatives.

Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft wants to artifact nationalist funding for room books that mightiness entreaty to the “prurient” — meaning intersexual — interests of minors. Ashcroft’s projected caller regularisation does not see a more-detailed explanation oregon see examples of which circumstantial books would beryllium restricted arsenic appealing sexually to children oregon teenagers.

Granbury Independent School District Superintendent Jeremy Glenn did not instantly instrumentality messages to The Associated Press connected Tuesday for remark astir the probe into the northbound Texas district.

The ACLU ailment was based connected a study by the media outlets that Glenn, successful January, instructed librarians to region books dealing with intersexual predisposition and radical who are transgender.

“I admit that determination are men that deliberation they’re women and determination are women that deliberation they’re men,” Glenn said, according to a leaked signaling of the meeting.

“I don’t person immoderate issues with what radical privation to believe, but there’s nary spot for it successful our libraries,” according to the report.

Chloe Kempf, an ACLU attorney, said the probe shows that the Education Department is acrophobic astir an summation successful anti-LGBTQ policies and publication removals nationally.

“In this lawsuit it was made precise clear, due to the fact that the superintendent benignant of said the quiescent portion retired loud,” Kempf said. “It’s beauteous wide that that benignant of information is animating a batch of these policies nationwide.”

In March, the territory said successful a connection that each students are valued and important, and it supports students of each backgrounds.

The connection said the territory was alert of Glenn's comments and that they were made successful an effort to comply with a petition from Gov. Greg Abbott that pornographic and sexually explicit books beryllium removed from nationalist schoolhouse libraries.

“The territory formed a reappraisal committee ... made up of educators and assemblage members from divers backgrounds,” excluding Glenn, the connection said. The committee determined that 8 books from the district's libraries were sexually explicit and not age-appropriate.

“Two of the 8 books did person LGBTQ+ themes, nevertheless each of the books that were removed had sexually explicit and/or pervasively vulgar content,” according to the statement.

The territory has astir 7,500 students connected 10 campuses astir 60 miles (97 kilometers) southwest of Dallas.

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Editors: Corrects spelling of Granbury successful dateline.

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