State Rep looks to exempt K-12 from obscenity laws, opponents say it will lead to book banning

By Rosemary Ford, Melanie Plenda

The State We’re In, NH PBS, Granite State News Collaborative

Lawmakers are considering a bill, HB 514, which would remove exemptions to state obscenity laws from K-12 staff and teachers – a move that would potentially lead school officials to remove books proactively or face misdemeanor charges. Advocates say this puts more educational power in parents' hands, while opponents contend this amounts to a book ban that will silence minority perspectives. 

 

In this episode of The State We’re In, we dig into the history, impact, and ramifications of a bill that would require each local school board to develop policy for responding to parental complaints of obscene material and remove some protections for K-12 school officials in state laws against obscenity. Joining us is bill sponsor, State Rep. Glen Cordelli from Carroll County District 7, and New Hampshire Bulletin Reporter Ethan DeWitt, who has been following the topic closely.

Melanie Plenda:

Walk us through what the bill would do and what it would change. Why is this change necessary? What isn't working well now? 

Glen Cordelli:

First of all, I'd say my intent with this bill is not to ban books. My intent is really to make sure that schools have age-appropriate educational materials. It's not a bill to ban books, but it does remove the exemption for education from our obscenity laws – specifically K-12 education, but leaves in place universities and colleges as being exempt. It also puts in place a process by which parents can go to their principal, and then to the local school board, if they object to certain materials in the school. I think that having a process is very important. I think things have changed. Since the pandemic and closing of schools and remote access, parents really had a window into what was going on in education like never before. It's all part of a national movement, if you will, for parents to exercise their rights in the education of their own children. And I think that is a key part of this. I think HB 514 falls into that same mold as trying to provide parents with more input into their kids' education.

Melanie Plenda:

As we talked about in the lead in, this could lead to misdemeanor charges in some cases. Can you talk about that a little bit? What's the reasoning behind adding that component, going that step further beyond just setting up a process so that parents can have that interaction?

Glen Cordelli:

I don't really think I've heard a good explanation as to why K-12 education should be exempt from our obscenity laws. I don't think there will be much prosecution or hearings related to that, I think the intent will be that parents will be communicating with their local school districts about this. But I think it's important that we send the message to New Hampshire schools that parents are really interested in age-appropriate education materials for their children and not having what many would consider borderline-pornographic materials available, and that our schools are focusing on academics and achievement in the state. 

Melanie Plenda:

You've mentioned a couple times that some of these materials are borderline obscene or pornographic, and as a parent that makes me very concerned. How widespread is this? What kind of materials? Can you be a little more specific, without trying to make you feel uncomfortable?

Glen Cordelli:

We had parents come to our education committee hearing, and present some of these materials, both texts, from books and pictures from books, and we had several members of the committee put down the text after reading a few sentences involving, you know, rape and incest, and various kinds of sex acts that certainly would fall under our obscenity laws, and refuse to read them and refuse to look at the pictures. And these were grown adults. I think I'll try and refrain from reading any of the texts on the House floor when we debate the bill.

Melanie Plenda:

Ethan, in your story you mention a parent who went through this situation. Can you tell us about that? What happened?

Ethan DeWitt:

This parent came before the House Education Committee and told the story about an app that Representative Cordelli just made reference to called Sora. It's an app that basically allows K-12 students access to a number of ebooks. There's thousands of books in the app in a partnership with Overdrive. If you're a member of your local library, you may know that app already and it's tailored for kids. 

But this parent’s high school son found a book on the app called The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School. This book was well received, it was a National Book Award finalist in 2022. It's about an LGBTQ Mexican American girl who's navigating Catholic school. But when her son opened the book on this app, the first page had a lot of explicit language, coarse language, some sexually explicit language. He reported it to his mom, took screenshots, and she went to the school district, objecting to that material being so easily accessible on an app. She was told that her son could be exempted from using the app but that the app would not be removed from the school. So for parents like her, this is an example of why they want stronger laws to kind of force the school districts to remove materials like that without needing to do it on a student-by-student basis. 

This kind of gets at the heart of the debate over this bill – whether materials parents might object to should be removed wholesale from schools, or whether there are materials that parents can object to for their own children, but not be removed from the school in general. Right now, the state law already mandates that schools have policies to allow a parent who doesn't like a certain instructional material being taught to opt their child out. And if the parent asked for that, the teacher and the school district had to find an alternative lesson plan for that child. 

Melanie Plenda:

You quoted Deb Howes, president of the American Federation of Teachers of New Hampshire. What did she have to say about the bill?

Ethan DeWitt:

She echoed the argument that teachers don't want one parent’s objection to decide for all the students in the school. Teachers, educators, and teachers’ unions argue that the books available in libraries and the app are vetted nationally that they provide different things for different students. Some of the books that have sexually explicit material are related to LGBTQ topics, and there are certain kids that, they argue, will benefit from being able to read the perspective of somebody who shares a lifestyle that they have, especially when they're struggling. They argue that one parent's objection should not remove the material for all students, but rather that one parent should go through the current recourse, which is to prevent their child from accessing that if they want to.

Melanie Plenda:

You also mention a retired teacher, Mary Wilke, who encountered a parental objection to the material she used in a lesson. Can you tell us about that example and what happened?

Ethan DeWitt:

This was a retired teacher in Concord, and she came to testify that when she was a teacher, one of the parents objected to a homework assignment about dinosaurs on religious reasons, because the notion that dinosaurs existed millions of years ago conflicted with her religion. Rather than that being a contentious conversation, this teacher said that she actually had a very friendly and respectful conversation with the parent, they both understood each other, and the teacher decided to assign a different material. Nobody suggested that nobody else gets to read about dinosaurs, but this student would get a different assignment. Again, this is the way that opponents of this bill look at it. Proponents of this bill argue that there are certain materials that are simply explicit and don't need alternatives, but simply need to be removed. So again, that's where this debate will continue.

Melanie Plenda:

Glen, how do you respond to opponents like those Ethan has discussed?

Glen Cordelli:

I think that local administrators and school boards can make the decisions, whether it's an individual parent objection like with the dinosaurs on religious grounds, or if it's something blatantly explicit that goes well beyond what is age-appropriate for a child. I know of a school board chairman who had a complaint, and they decided that it was age appropriate material, so they worked out in accommodation and left the book in the school library. I think that appropriate decisions can be made on the local level, and it's all part of what we refer to as “local control of education”, and certainly moving toward greater parental control of education.

Melanie Plenda:

Substantively, it sounds like some of the argument here is that when you have this change to the obscenity law you might have school districts acting proactively. So just working in that framework of what the bill might do, can you walk me through how this might work. If  a school district puts a process in place and the parents get to talk to the school district and the school board, and a decision is made, if someone else in that school district [disagrees with that decision] who decides if the teacher or the administrator or even the school board has violated the law? How would that process work?

Glen Cordelli:

First of all, it is a process and the parent can start out with the principal and school board. I think that they're capable of making those decisions. But if they could take it up to the state board of education, as well. I think that there will be clear lines as to what is pornographic or too explicit. But having this exemption removed for K- 12 education from the obscenity law, I think will send a message to schools that they need to be proactive not in removing books but in making sure that materials are appropriate that they are presenting to children in the different grade levels. So I think it's going to be proactive in terms of making sure that there are not problems along these lines in the future.

Melanie Plenda:

What's next for the bill? Where does it go from here?

Glen Cordelli:

It'll go for a full House vote in a few weeks. And because it was a 10-10 tie, the first motion will be an ‘ought to pass motion.’ So you know, we'll see what happens with that. But we have a pretty evenly divided house at this point. So it's always a matter of who shows up on a given day as to what happens in the final vote of the full house. But I'm optimistic and I'm hopeful that parents will contact their legislators and make their opinions known. That's always so important for parents to take that responsibility and for legislators to be listening to parents.

The State We’re in is produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications and shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.