A North Carolina parent cited state law in pointing the Wake County School Board to possible felonious, sexually explicit material found in one of its libraries.
Chad Slotta told the board in its Oct. 5 meeting that one of his children found the book, “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison in the school’s library.
The book, Slotta said, describes illicit sex between minors, a 10-year-old who engages in a sex act during a church youth group behind a church parsonage, sexually explicit language, and allusions to bestiality.
“Now I feel grieved and embarrassed to even discuss this issue in a public forum, but in the defense of innocence and decency of not only my child but the classmates, I can’t remain silent,” Slotta told the board during public comment.
It’s unacceptable that an adult trusted to educate children, “either knowingly or through ignorance,” would permit the dissemination of objectively obscene material to children, Slotta said.
Slotta later read from NC General Statute 14-190.1, which states that it’s a class-one felony for a “person, firm, or corporation to intentionally disseminate obscenity” that depicts or describes in a “patently offensive way” sexual conduct that could be directed at children as a potential audience.
‘At Best, Broken; At Worst, Corrupt’
Slotta asked the board to initiate a “thorough and transparent” review of the books currently available and the process by which they are chosen.
“The process by which books and material are added to our school libraries is at best broken, and at worst, corrupt,” Slotta said. “It’s broken if an elected or unelected person or committee failed to properly vet this book and others like it from coming into the school. The process is corrupt if an elected or unelected official or committee vetted the book and others like it and thought, ‘Hey, this would add value to our children,’ then sourced them intentionally in our schools.”
Slotta later told The Epoch Times that as he’s watched the brewing controversy of sexualized material being found in K-12 school systems across the country, he’s identified several other titles in his child’s online school library.
“I didn’t want to transfer a national narrative on our local situation unless those things were actually happening here,” Slotta said. “Unfortunately, we discovered that in fact books we saw being reported on and others, which in our opinion are more obscene and more graphic, were in the library where our child attends school.”
Other books he named were “Out of Darkness,” by Ashley Hope Perez, in which he said there are multiple sexual descriptions, one of which being a group of boys fantasizing about group sex; and “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” by George M. Johnson, in which he said there are vivid details about sexual acts.
Slotta didn’t name the specific school his child attends because, he said, his goal is not to get anyone fired, but to effect change by initiating the review that would question the legality of the material within the context of a K-12 scholastic setting.
In response to Slotta’s concerns, a Wake County board member forwarded Slotta a written policy by which parents can request a review and removal of certain material.
“What the board member didn’t get back to me on was the process by which these are added to the media center,” he said. “I suspect that’s going to be more of a challenge for them to respond to just given the nature of those materials, but that will be a major emphasis of our inquiry going forward.”
Appropriate Discernment
Within the school setting, Slotta said “sexuality” and “biology” should be discerned.
“We send our kids to school to be taught science and mathematics, and a part of that discipline of science includes anatomy and biology, but when it comes to human sexuality, which to me is a very different discipline, I think that belongs at home with the parents, not in the schools with the teachers,” Slotta said.
When reached for comment, the Wake County Public School System’s (WCPS) communication director sent The Epoch Times the WCPS’ policy on the parent’s right to inspect materials and submit an objection.
“If the committee determines that any material violates constitutional or other legal rights of the parent or student, the principal or the committee shall either remove the material from instructional use or accommodate the student or parent,” the policy states.
F.A.C.T.S. Task Force
Earlier this year, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Republican, had enacted the F.A.C.T.S. (Fairness and Accountability in the Classroom for Teachers and Students) task force to provide an online portal through which teachers and students can submit examples of critical race theory (CRT) in the North Carolina school systems.
CRT is based on the Marxist philosophy that describes society as a class struggle between oppressors and the oppressed; it labels white people as the oppressors and all other races as the oppressed.
In the report, themes of race shaming, sexualization of children, allusions to surgical castration in children’s literature, and accusations of xenophobia against political figures surfaced.
Democrats, including Gov. Roy Cooper, have said that the allegations of CRT being taught in schools is “conspiracy-laden politics.”
Cooper later vetoed a bill that would have prohibited teachings that promote concepts that are contrary to “equality and rights of all persons.”
This week, Robinson faced criticism over comments he made in a church while being filmed.
The video was posted on Twitter by a group called Right Wing Watch.
In referring to homosexuality and transgenderism, Robinson said these issues “have no place in school.”
“There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling a child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth, and yes I called it filth,” Robinson said.
The White House and North Carolina politicians, including Gov. Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein, condemned Robinson, and various LGBT groups called for his resignation, to which Robinson later said he wouldn’t “back down.”
In a press conference on Oct. 12, Robinson said that by “filth,” he was referring to the material, not the LGBT community.
“The narrative that’s been driven that I have something against the LGBT community is absolutely false,” Robinson said.
American is not a theocracy, he added.
“I don’t have the right to tell anyone how they live their personal lives,” Robinson said.
Though he may disagree with one’s lifestyle on a “personal and spiritual level,” he said it’s his job to protect people’s rights.
Robinson then said the question around the material being found in schools is a legal issue.
“You can look at this and clearly see that this is quite possibly, probably is child pornography being presented to our children,” he said, referencing images he had displayed beside him from the book “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” by Maia Kobabe, which depicted explicit sexual acts.
Both “Gender Queer” and “Lawn Boy” were pulled from The Fairfax Public School system in Virginia after a parent spoke out against the books at a school board meeting.
When asked in what school systems the book was found, Robinson’s director of communication said it “came to our office’s attention from Cedar Ridge High School in Hillsborough, North Carolina. However, we know that it is in at least six counties: Buncombe, Durham, Gaston, Mecklenburg, Orange, and Wake.”