Senator Mary Pilcher-Cook (R-Shawnee) sponsored Senate Bill 56.
School teachers and librarians have cause to be alert. If voted into law by the Kansas legislature, Senate Bill 56 (SB56) would amend a state public morals statute “by deleting an exemption that protects K−12 public, private, and parochial schoolteachers from being prosecuted for presenting material deemed harmful to minors,” reports Courthouse News Service.
If the bill becomes law, librarians who work with young adult literature, English teachers who teach “controversial” books, including The Red Badge of Courage, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Huckleberry Finn, and sex educators could be subject to a class B misdemeanor charge and, if convicted, serve up to six months in jail.
“Harmful material,” according to SB56, includes “depictions of nudity, sexual conduct, homosexuality, sexual excitement, or sadomasochistic abuse ‘in a manner that is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the community with respect to what is suitable for minors.’”
“Frankly legislators should stay out of what is taught in classrooms,” says Joan Bertin, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC).
The bill, sponsored by Senator Mary Pilcher-Cook (R-Shawnee), who serves on the state senate’s Standing Committee on Judiciary, has captured the attention of the advocacy and education communities, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Kansas National Education Association, and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Kansas and Mid-Missouri. These organizations appeared before the committee on January 22, 2015 to testify against the bill.
Kansas ACLU executive director, Micah Kubic, has criticized SB56 for being “overly broad,” reported The Kansas City Star, warning that the bill “could criminalize teachers simply for distributing handouts, displaying posters, or sharing educational information.”
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the deputy director of the Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIF) of the American Library Association (ALA), says that the bill, if voted into law, would have a “chilling effect on teachers and librarians who don’t want to be prosecuted.”
Caldwell-Stone goes on to say that she believes the law was created due to a particular incident, and not intended to impact what a library offers—but it would have impact, nonetheless. The “incident” that triggered the drafting of SB56 took place in 2013 at a middle school in Johnson County where a poster was hung outside a sex education classroom, which asked: “How do people express their sexual feelings?” On the poster was a list that included “oral sex,” “anal sex,” and other sex acts. (No images were shown.) After parents complained, the poster was removed and the teacher disciplined.
“Pornography and obscene materials are becoming more and more prevalent in our society,” Pilcher-Cook told The Topeka-Capital Journal, “and it is all too common to hear of cases where children are not being protected from the harm it inflicts.”
“I think it’s an exercise in self-delusion to think that…[sex education] information is totally unfamiliar to these kids,” says Bertin,
She adds that undoubtedly there will be a wide variety of response from parents regarding whether it is acceptable to show what could be considered “controversial” information to kids, but it should be up to educators to decide what should be taught and how to handle the presentation of information—as well as offer a choice for parents to opt out.
The bill is troubling in several aspects to its opponents, but one that Jocelyn A. Chadwick, a former assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, points out is that the bill undermines constitutional precedent—meaning court cases in the past that have protected teachers and the literature they teach, i.e., Monteiro vs. The Tempe Union High School District.
A similar bill was proposed last year, but did not pass, according to The Kansas City Star.
In the meantime, Caldwell-Stone says, “It’s on our list of our bills to monitor.”