Below is a transcript I made of The Tamara Scott Show recorded 1/19/2023. There is so much good information here that will change the landscape of schools having carte blanche to indoctrinate children.
With Mr. Baggish's help, those days will be coming to an end if you act on the guidance he provides and I endorse.
Read on:
Scott, Tamara, and Stuart Baggish, Esq. “The Tamara Scott Show With : Stuart Baggish - Law Office of Stuart Baggish.” Frank the Voice of Free Speech, January 20, 2023. https://frankspeech.com/video/tamara-scott-show-stuart-baggish-law-office-stuart-baggish.
Tamara Scott:
Happy Thursday. It is 1/19/23, 19 days into the new year, 19 days into your new habits, into your resolutions. If you have been faithful to keep those up, hats off to you. Good job. .... All right, your children, the most precious possessions you have on this earth, the only possessions, your loved ones, are those possessions that you can have in heaven with you. And yet it seems there are those who are purposely trying to destroy their minds, destroy their innocence, their purity, confuse their hearts, and it's happening right under your noses in the classroom too often.
Today joining me is Stuart Baggish. I learned of Stuart on the Protect Child Health Coalition, Protect Child Health Coalition. If you've not been to that website, go to that website. There is a video. We'll play an excerpt from this video today, just a 30-second excerpt from this video. It is a 10-minute video. Do not watch it with your children. Do not watch it around your children. The language, it's not so much the language other than it's very graphic in language, but it's going to show you, and here's what you need to understand. While you may be embarrassed to watch this with your pastor or your husband or someone else, your children are being taught this in the elementary classroom. The things you're hearing in this video are being taught not just in the elementary classrooms in America, but across the globe. It is a global attempt to destroy our children.
We'll show you that little clip in just a minute. Let me read to you Stuart's bio. We are so honored to have Stuart join us today. Stuart is an attorney admitted in Texas, California, Florida. He's been practicing law for almost 33 years, including work in criminal prosecution, defense in First Amendment law, civil litigation and trials, education law and administrative enforcement law. His personal experience includes successful prosecution of an obscenity defendant who was convicted and became the only cartoonist in US history who was jailed for obscenity, which was upheld all the way to the US Supreme Court. That happened in 1994 and it is still the only time it has happened, which is what we're going to talk to Stuart about today because oftentimes we have legislators who are well intended, bring up legislation, but by using the term obscenity, Stuart can give us some help on that, which may actually harm their ability to have that law stand and to find standing in court cases should they need it. Let me give you just a little bit more. His professional experience includes, let me jump ahead.
The feature length documentary film entitled Boiled Angels: The Trial of Mike Diana, which was available on Amazon for only 2.99 or on Putlocker for free about the case is that which Mr. Baggish is depicted as the bad guy by the people currently trying to destroy American civil society. About 20 minutes of film consist of Mr. Baggish explaining why the material in question is not protected by the First Amendment. He also worked for the legal team at the Texas Education Agency General Counsel's Office, which handled the removal and replacement of the entire board of trustees at the El Paso Independent School District in 24 through 2016. And he led the prosecution in trial of a suspension and revocations of teaching licenses of superintendents and principals involved in a massive district-wide assessment cheating scheme, which was the biggest case in the history of the Texas Education Association. He is now in private practice and representing parents, students, teachers with claims against woke leftist school district. Stuart Baggish, I am so honored to have you on our show today. Thank you for joining us and all of our viewers at The Tamara Scott Show.
Stuart Baggish:
Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Tamara Scott:
Well, so I mentioned, I saw you on the Protect Child Health Coalition newsletter that I get and they're very, very speak very high of your work. Do you mind if we take that 30-second video snippet and watch it just real quick?
Stuart Baggish:
Oh, go right ahead. Go right ahead. Absolutely.
Tamara Scott:
All right. To the gentleman in the production crew, can you start at the 4:34 mark and we'll just go to 5:01. This is probably the safest bit of this video that I can show on TV here at Lindell.
Speaker 4:
Wars, inanimate objects, animals, minors, and non-consenting persons.
Speaker 5:
In the context of the sustainable development goals that determines the agenda for the next 15 years, the voice is very, very biased. It's just International Planned Parenthood Federation and their affiliates have a direct influence on the outcome documents, on what is established, what is negotiated at the UN.
Tamara Scott:
So I don't know if you could catch the first part of that, but they're teaching nine-year-olds and others, some of the curriculum goes to kindergarten, we're talking about comprehensive sex ed confusing children. Dr. Miriam Grossman says when you put sexual freedom, when that's your priority, you will not have sexual health. And we're seeing that and some of them call it mental abuse with what we're doing with children today in school. So we're going to talk about that, but we're going to talk with Stuart about how we can actually write laws to fix some of these things, to correct some of these issues we just showed you. This is global, like many of the other attacks on our liberties and our freedoms, this is coming from a global perspective. It's not just local, but I think the source and the correction is local many times. So Stuart, where would you like to start in the topics that we're going to discuss today? Do you want to start with obscenity first? The reason we don't use the term obscenity, this was new when you said that.
Stuart Baggish:
Yeah, I'd like to start with [inaudible 00:11:48].
Tamara Scott:
You were the first I'd ever heard say that.
Stuart Baggish:
The topic of obscenity. The first thing I want everybody to understand is that obscenity is an exception from First Amendment protection because it is not speech. When you satisfy the requirements of the standard laid out in the US Supreme Court case of Miller versus California, and it's a three part test, it's not speech, it is an assault on the senses that takes the form of words and images rather than speech. And so it's not protected. And the Miller standard of obscenity is first that it is patently offensive according to contemporary community standards, which means right here, right now it is patently offensive. The second element is it appeals primarily to a prurient interest in sex. Now, the word prurient is not something that people use in their everyday discussions. It means a shameful, lustful, or morbid interest in sex. So for short, it is something that makes you horny, but you're ashamed that it does.
And the third element is that the material taken as a whole has to lack any and all serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value. In order to qualify as obscenity, you have to satisfy all three of those elements, and it is virtually impossible to meet that standard. The material in question has to be absolutely irredeemable. There is a genre out there of what's called stomp videos where women in stiletto heels stomp live baby chicks to death. That was determined to be obscene and that also was upheld, but very little short of that is prohibited as obscenity because obscenity is contraband. It's like cocaine. All people, whether they're adult or children, are prohibited from selling it, advertising it, and even shipping it. If you put it in the mail, you're violating federal law by doing so, and it doesn't matter whether you're a minor or an adult, the material is prohibited.
So when you use the term obscenity, it is a legal standard that is very hard to meet and it does not really apply when you're talking about what's being done in the schools to corrupt our children. What's happening with the material, even sexually explicit material, is that they will include a passage in the material, a quote from Benjamin Franklin or something to give it political value, and that means it's not obscene. It means that you're going to lose if you're going after it on the basis of obscenity because there's sexually inappropriate portions.
In order for it to be obscene, it has to be utterly bereft of redeeming value. And if there's just one aspect of it that it is redeeming, they're off the hook. So I'm cautioning everybody who is trying to get indecency out of the schools to avoid using the term obscenity because they are choosing a battlefield that the left wants to fight on because they know they can win on that battlefield. Instead, what has to be done is the folks who are trying to end the p0rnification of our schools need to address the material as being not obscenity, but sexually inappropriate for minors, as being educationally unsuitable for students, and that's a battleground where we can win.
Tamara Scott:
And oftentimes that sexually appropriate or age appropriate is one of the terms that schools will use that we find we have to be very, very careful about because we don't usually agree with them on age appropriate on this sensitive content. So real quickly, I want to hear how did you win the case then if it was a cartoon drawing, we have the book, It's Perfectly Normal, which is p0rnographic. It's written to 10-year-olds. That would be third grade students. It's in school libraries even here in Iowa. Folks found that it was in school libraries, some of us were talking about this over the last decade and a half, two decades. But I'm thrilled other people are catching on and some of the mama's groups that have risen after the Loudoun County wake-up call are now catching on and I'm thrilled for that. So It's Perfectly Normal book would be a great example of a cartoon drawing, but it is p0rnographic geared towards children. How did you win your lawsuit?
Stuart Baggish:
Well, the case that I was prosecuting was against material that was called Boiled Angels. It was back in 1993, 1994, and that was a self-published zine that was being published out of Largo, Florida, which is near Clearwater. And that material was obscene. There was nothing redeeming in the material. The books that are in the public schools now as violent, indecent as they are, they do not qualify as obscene. I'm familiar with the obscenity standard. And as vile as it is, they do not satisfy the obscenity standard. You've got a problem, if you're talking about it in terms of obscenity, you're going to lose. What needs to be done is to address it as being sexually inappropriate for minors, which is a standard for education because in Texas, the Texas Education Agency acts as the enforcement authority for the State Board for Educator Certification, which licenses all public school educators.
And to be a teacher or a principal or a superintendent in Texas of a public school district, you have to hold one of these licenses. It's like a bar license for an attorney or a CPA license for an accountant. It is the most important thing that these individuals have because it's their means of earning a living. And if you can go after their license, they will stop doing what they are doing. It is the jugular vein to go after in this fight. The stuff that is sexually indecent for children is stuff that violates the standards that apply to public school educators because they're prohibited in Texas from inappropriate communication with a student. And the examples given in the educator's code of ethics for things that qualify as inappropriate communication includes sexually explicit material. So if a teacher communicates sexually inappropriate material to a student, they're subject to discipline against their license. And once they lose their license, they're out of work that day. It doesn't matter what their contract with the school district says, because one of the requirements of the contract is that they maintain their teaching license in good standing.
Tamara Scott:
All right. So I've put an article on The Tamara Scott Show Facebook page for all of you. It's from Epoch Times. It's not a new article, but it talks about the fact that only in seven states, I think it might be eight now, that Tennessee has won this battle, but only eight, seven states at the time actually had a ban on p0rnography. Many of them, all the other states actually exempt p0rnography in the public schools. So this is part of the challenge we're dealing with.
And so Stuart, what you're telling us is in Texas you have a code of conduct. I don't know if we have a code, and I want to be careful about that. I have no issue with employers having it. We just had something in the Republican Party of Iowa and I had a real difficult time with that one because we're accountable to the voters, not to our peers who may be uncomfortable with our point of view. That's that doesn't classify for me. But in this working, when you take a job, there is a code of ethics is what you're calling it in Texas. So for all these states who have bans or exemption bans on p0rnography, is this one way that they could possibly get control of the indecent or sexually explicit material in the classroom or inappropriate material in the classroom?
Stuart Baggish:
Yes. The exception that you're talking about is an exception that exists under criminal law so that you're not subject to a criminal conviction for using obscene material for educational purposes. And what that is so that a college can use stuff that has been adjudicated obscene to teach abnormal psych students what obscenity is and not face a conviction for disseminating it. That's what it exists for. Now, public school teachers have latched onto that education exception and claimed that it means that they can disseminate obscenity to minors, but they can't because in Texas, the educators code of ethics governs the conduct of all certified educators at all times, even when they're on vacation, even when they're out of the country. And there's no statute of limitations for a violation of the educator's code of ethics. You have to abide by the prohibitions and standard 3.9 of the educator's code of ethics in Texas provides that the educator shall refrain from inappropriate communication with a student or minor.
And inappropriate communication includes under Roman number five, whether the communication was sexually explicit. So a sexually explicit communication to a student is a violation of standard 3.9 of the Texas Educator's Code of Ethics irrespective of what the criminal law provides. This doesn't mean the exception that people are talking about with respect to obscenity is an exception from criminal conviction. It means they aren't going to be jailed for it if they are using it in an educational setting. It does not mean that they are at liberty to do it for teaching purposes.
Any state that has an educator's code of ethics should model their educator's code of ethics off of what Texas has done. And if a state lacks an educator's code of ethics, they should as soon as possible enact an educator's code of ethics that is the exact duplicate of what Texas has. And it's at Title 19 of the Texas Administrative Code, which is education section 247.2, and the list of standards is very short. It's only three pages long. It's easy to read. It can be contained in a single pamphlet with room for commentary and it lays out in shall and shall not form what is and is not allowed. If you violate the educator's code of ethics, you're subject to a complaint and prosecution and discipline against your teaching license, which every single teacher, no matter what their principal or superintendent is telling them to do, they will refuse to do it if it means losing their license.
Tamara Scott:
And so yesterday we showed our viewers a clip from accuracy in the media out of Ohio teachers talking about how they were going to skirt a law, should it be passed on the banning of the teaching of CRT. We've had the discussion here in Iowa, our legislators were quite responsive last year, came down on the CRT and we had videos of teachers in Iowa saying that how they were going to ignore it and do it anyway. So if we had this code and what you're saying is by going to Title 19, section 247.2 of the Texas Teaching Code, they could take that language and they can create a teaching code here in Iowa or any other state that may not have one or if they have one, they could insert this language.
Stuart Baggish:
Yes, it's language from the Texas Administrative Code. I have to point that out because there is a Texas Education Code, but that's separate. That is the statutes. The Texas Administrative Code is the administrative law at the regulations that needs to be modeled in states that don't have that provision. But by modeling that, there is a standard in there also that says that an educator shall comply and it means comply at all times in all places with state, local and federal laws. And that means the state, local and federal education laws. And in the education code, the Texas education code section 28.0022, there is a prohibition against teaching the 1619 Project. There is a prohibition against teaching that one race is better than another. There's a prohibition against teaching that one sex is better than another. So there are all kinds of useful provisions for trying to level the playing field in this battle with the woke attack on public schools that people are utterly unaware of and people are not taking advantage of.
Tamara Scott:
So to all of our viewers out there, if you are a legislator or if you know of a legislator who would be interested in this, Stuart, do we have a way where we can help them connect with the code if they've got questions? Would we help usher some of these folks? In fact, I've got a group of legislators. Okay.
Stuart Baggish:
I would love to hear [inaudible 00:27:05].
Tamara Scott:
Let's see what we can do.
Stuart Baggish:
People who are interested, just give them my email address and I'd be happy to guide them through the process and share with them everything that I've got. And there's a lot of material that works to our advantage that people are just not taking advantage of.
Tamara Scott:
And let's be clear, he's on this to be educational for all of you. This is not an attorney-client privilege relationship for any of you, whether he reaches out or you reach out to him. This is an advisory role from this show. And today we'll take phone calls, we'll open the phone lines pretty soon, that 901-316-8404 number, 901-316-8404 number. We'll take your phone call shortly if you've got a question on some of these topics. Stuart, one, I just appreciate you tackling this issue. This seems to be pretty solid, we've battled it for years. People have put bills up, the bills wouldn't go. And let me save yours. I know he is sincere because I've already connected to him with a legislator today in another state, and so I know he's sincere and good to help when he can. So you're saying that they've used this now to stop the teaching of CRT or 1619 or some of these other indoctrination leftist woke programs.
We saw this folks, if you remember, it was not a good way to use it, but in Iowa, the Board of Medicine came after honest medical professionals who either had concerns about the protocol that was being forced or wanted to offer a different protocol they found to be effective or didn't care for the vaccines that were under experimental use and not fully tested in their mind. They were threatened. Many of them are still going through threats over their medical licenses. To me that is a bad use of this, but it's similar to what we're talking about. And now I know that Iowa's done it and other states have done it. There's no reason we don't put it to good use, use it for good in holding teachers accountable in the government run schools. They take their paycheck from your pocketbook, from your paycheck. And so holding them accountable is not a bad thing.
Stuart Baggish:
That's correct. One thing that we're seeing, which is a unique phenomenon, is we've got the problem of the school district's actually leading the attack on children, which is something that never in a thousand years would anybody have ever thought would happen. It was always presumed throughout the entirety of jurisprudence and public education was it ever considered that the schools would be the ones attempting to force indecency on children. All of the cases that go to the US Supreme Court that have to do with education and restrictions on the First Amendment as it applies to students approach the issue from whether the school can restrict speech by students, whether a school can prohibit a student from speaking at an assembly and delivering indecent material in that speech. And the Supreme Court said, "Yes, absolutely. The school district stands in the shoes of the parents and has a right to prohibit indecency from being disseminated to the captive student population."
But the US Supreme Court has never entertained the idea that it would be the school districts themselves forcing the indecency on kids. That is a new thing and nobody ever thought that we would be having to deal with it yet here we are today and that's exactly what's happening and it's shameful. So the one way to deal with this is to go around the school district and to go directly against the teachers who hold teaching licenses and hold them accountable to the standards of their profession because if it brings their license under threat, they'll stop doing it. They won't follow the instructions from above if it imperils their license.
Tamara Scott:
So you know that we'll hear complaint probably from the left that we're against teachers and that they'll be the ones punished when they may be forced to teach whatever curriculum it may be from the higher ups. How do you respond to that?
Stuart Baggish:
I'm not against teachers. I represent teachers and I represent Christian teachers who are fighting against this who want to resist calling John "Jane." And the simple answer to that is you're never wrong by using the actual name on the permanent student record for a child. If the parents have gone to the trouble of changing the name under which their child is enrolled as a student in the district, then that is something that you should use as the name you use to refer to a student. But if the student himself or herself is saying, "I'm no longer John, refer to me as Jane," the teacher is always on solid ground to say, "I'm going to refer to you by the name on your permanent student record." And that is one way to respond. And a lot of teachers have found that to be useful information. There are good, virtuous teachers out there, and I represent a lot of them. We're working to try to make-
Tamara Scott:
You're absolutely correct.
Stuart Baggish:
Yeah.
Tamara Scott:
We have teachers-
Stuart Baggish:
To return the educational project back where it belongs, which is to teach the useful and socially constructive educational principles, which should be the focus of public education, not wokeism, which is destructive.
Tamara Scott:
We have teachers and counselors asking for protection. They don't want to be forced or coerced into gender affirming is the term that the left uses to where a student may experience be experiencing confusion on their identity, their sexual identity. They don't want to be coerced into encouraging a student to take a treatment that will be life altering, that could have damage resulting whether it's bone density, whether it's brain development. When you take a hormone blocker, it doesn't just block the hormones, it blocks other parts of growth and development in your body. And we now have studies where kids are experiencing damage and results of this. And so we have counselors and teachers who don't want to be forced to do this and this would be a way, Stuart, then to help them, as you say, you would represent them as well if you have teachers who are trying... Because I know we've had counselors ask legislators to protect their licenses. They're at threat of losing their license if they don't come along with what they call the gender affirming treatment.
Stuart Baggish:
And if there is someone in a school district that is twisting a virtuous teacher's arm to try to force them to give in on this, there is a standard of the educator's code of ethics that prohibits doing that. So there would be a basis for a complaint against the principal or against the superintendent that is trying to strong-arm a virtuous teacher who is simply going by the name that is on the student's permanent school record as their enrolled name. If you take a strong position, you don't have to give way on it, and there's nothing that they can do lawfully, and they would subject themselves to discipline by trying to coerce you. So that is something that I recommend the virtuous teachers stand their ground. Give me a call, I can help you out.
Tamara Scott:
Great. And we have good news happening in several states. Several legislators at the state level are doing what they can to combat this effort, but we want to make sure that they get the information that Stuart is talking about. So it's a good law that will have standing that will make it all the way to the Supreme Court if it would be necessary. And we'll open the phone lines, guys. We'll go ahead and open the phone lines 901-316-8404. You're welcome to call in 901-316-8404 questions about something happening in your school district, things that you might try in your school district. Two questions for you, Stuart. You talk about the teacher's code of ethics. Is that a national association code of ethics or is that something specific to states?
Stuart Baggish:
No, it's specific to the state of Texas. It's a section of the Texas Administrative Code, and it is a regulation that was enacted by the State Board for Educator Certification. So it's a rule that all teaching license holders must abide by, and if they don't, they're violating the requirements for their licensure and they're subjecting themselves to discipline in Texas, yes. Education, public education is a state law matter. So it's something that, thank God, in Texas, we have very strong laws that help in that respect. Every other state ought to do likewise.
Tamara Scott:
All right. And then talk to us a little bit about finding similar statutes in other states to remove teachers, but also the language. Correcting the language in state legislative bills is we've talked today about not using obscenity but using sexually inappropriate. Are there other tips like that that you can give them in this area?
Stuart Baggish:
Yeah. The quickest thing that a state legislature could do is just to look at Title 19 or section 247.2 and enact that code under its state laws for public education. In Florida, they had to pass a law saying that teachers cannot discuss sexually inappropriate matters with students because Texas [sic, Florida] doesn't have a strong educator's code of ethics the way the state of Texas does. If the state of Florida would just enact an educator's code of ethics the way that Texas has, they would be in much better standing and they would have a lot of ways to keep educators from corrupting our students because if anyone hasn't noticed, there is a movement afoot where the teachers are leading the charge to corrupt the children of America.
Tamara Scott:
Absolutely. We've talked about it on the show, the video that I played for you, you can find at Protect Child Health Coalition, Protect Child Health Coalition. It's a 10-minute video and I highly recommend it because as Stuart is saying, this is not just happening in some schools, it's not just a few teachers, it is a well-organized movement. It is purposeful, intentional, and it is global. UNESCO is one of those that is leading the charge. This video talks about that. And then it talks about the things that they are telling your nine-year-old, your kindergartner, I think you will be stunned, and we're blessed and fortunate that we are not losing more kids than we already have to degenerative thought, to this experimentation, and to confusion. But if you are a Christian parent out there, pray, pray, pray, pray. But if you knew there was a predator waiting, you wouldn't pray and send them in the public restroom at the big box discount store or the fast food restaurant.
You wouldn't just pray and send them in anyway. You'd take action. And friends, parents, grandparents, legislators, it is time for us to take action. Our children have been under siege for decades. We know it. And people say that they're leaving them in the schools to be missionaries. That's not their role. That's your role. And they're actually the mission field. Not only are they the mission field, they're the battlefield and it is a battle for their mind. And it is high time that we take our children back and this is the year. We've had enough. We've seen it, the exposure, Loudoun County, you've seen where you've been called as parents domestic terrorists, if you cared about your kids and the exposure that they were having to endure in Loudoun County, the way parents were treated, it is time now. So let me tell you a couple organizations that was on the Protect Child Healthcare, that video is on Protect Child Healthcare.
That's one of them. This video itself, I believe is Stop CSE, Comprehensive Sex Ed, which I call compulsive sexual exploitation when I speak about it, compulsive sexual exploitation, in our schools. You also have a Child Protection League out of Minnesota, an excellent group that provides great information. They have a global reach as well. You have Child and Parent Rights, Vernadette Broyles and Attorney Mary McAlister, also doing great work. We've had them on the show. Terry Schilling from American Principles Project will help on legislation when we're combating those bills that protect children in their sports. We have a great senator out of Nebraska, Kathleen Kauth, who has a bill she's just offered called Sports and Spaces that you have to be the birth, and I say conceived at conception, not your sex at birth, conceived at conception because we now know people will leave birth certificates blank or they will manufacture whatever they wish on the certificate.
To me, it is the sex ordained, ordained at conception. And then we also have Concerned Women for America. We have a lot of great state directors around this nation right there in Missouri, just to the south of us. There's some good work going on as well in the state legislature with Jay Ashcroft will try and get to in just a minute that they found another inroad in combating what's happening to our children and we want to share that, but also the Concerned Women for America there. All right, Stuart, I'll certainly let you respond to anything I just said there and we have a caller we'll go to as soon as you're done.
Stuart Baggish:
Yeah, all of those individuals that you named are wonderful. One that I wanted to add to the list myself is a gentleman named Dan Kleinman of an organization called SafeLibraries and he is fighting a battle royale with the American Library Association, which is the institution that is pushing all of this nationally. And his group is excellent. He is an attorney himself. He is also in Texas and he's a friend of mine and he has been working to get the indecency out of libraries so that children aren't being corrupted. It's not a restriction on what adults can access. It's keeping it out of the hands of children. The problem that we're facing now is that they have chosen to go to war with our kids and we can't afford to give them the benefit of the doubt. There's a hard line there that we cannot give them even an inch on this.
Tamara Scott:
We can't afford it. Our children can't afford it. Mark from Nebraska, thank you for watching The Tamara Scott Show. Do you have a question or a comment for our guest?
Caller Mark:
Yes. The question is to fill out a complaint, is that only allowed by parents or can taxpayers in that same school district fill out the complaint form?
Stuart Baggish:
Any member of the public can file a written complaint the way it's done in Texas. I don't know how it's done in Nebraska, but in Texas, anyone so long as you do... It's not anonymous. You do have to sign and you do have to give your name and contact information because what you're doing is you're making an allegation against a teacher seeking to have administrative discipline taken against them, and they're entitled to have a hearing on it. So what you're doing is you're saying, "I'm here. I'm the complainant. I'm available to testify if need be at a hearing about why this is wrong and why this should not be tolerated and why this individual's license should be disciplined." So you can do that. Anyone can do it. You don't have to be a parent, you don't have to be a teacher or anyone else connected with the education system. Any citizen can do it.
Caller Mark:
Are there safeguards built into Texas law that prevent teachers who've had a complaint filed against them taking retaliation against a parent?
Stuart Baggish:
There is. There's a standard in the educator's code of ethics. Really, that was an excellent question. There is a standard in the educators code of ethics that prohibits retaliation for a complaint. And what that does is it has the effect, there are three levels of discipline. The first level is a reprimand. That's a bad mark against the teacher's license that is a part of their permanent record. So when they go apply for a job at a district, the district pulls up their license and sees, "Oh, this teacher has been disciplined before." And most of the time they'll decide not to hire them on that basis. That is the least severe sanction. The middle level of severity is a suspension where for a period of months or years, they're prohibited from teaching. The most severe sanction is revocation, and that's where you lose the ability to teach in the public school system if it's a permanent revocation for life.
What a retaliation does is it makes it from whatever was the severity of the original complaint, it increases the severity of that complaint to the next level. So if you were complaining about a violation that ordinarily would be a reprimand case, suddenly it is now a suspension case and if it was previously a suspension case, suddenly it's now a revocation case. And if it was originally a revocation case, now it's a permanent revocation case. So it makes things worse. And most teachers who care about their teaching license will be scared of increasing the severity of the threat to their license. It's like if you were subject to an audit by the IRS, would you want the auditors at the IRS to suddenly start looking at you not simply to impose liability for unpaid taxes against you, but also imprisonment? I mean, nobody in their right mind would do that.
Tamara Scott:
All right. Thank you for the question. Thank you for watching The Tamara Scott Show, Mark. Anybody else? 901-316-8404, your questions or your comments, what's happening in your state. As I mentioned Senator Kauth in Nebraska, she has the Sports and Spaces bill. She also has Let Them Grow bill protecting students from the treatments that could be dangerous and harmful the rest of their life. We have a legislator in North Dakota working on a bill along these lines. We have legislators right here in Iowa working on it. And in Missouri, we've working on some education bills as well. Let me show you Logan Reagan, if you can go to that Facebook post from one of our friends in Missouri. This is talking about Jill Noble sent this to us, and Jill Noble is a former Concerned Women for America. She's a legislative liaison or what she did, but with she was with Concerned Women for America.
Now she's one of those parents making a difference. But she said, and gentlemen, if you can find that Facebook post, maybe show it to everyone, "Missouri children are being sexualized in our public schools, public libraries through sexual explicit books, drag queens story times and more. We've all seen this, right? We commend Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, Republican, for filing new administrative rules on Friday, October 14th, 2022 to protect our children. These proposed administrative rules were published in the Missouri Register on November 15th, 2022, have a 30-day comment period. Secretary Ashcroft welcomes and encourages your submissions. Your email for the comments today to secretary are prohibiting the funding of public libraries that fail to abide by the proposed rule, which in part prohibits age inappropriate presentations and materials of any kind in Missouri libraries, public libraries, and upholds the parents' right to choose what materials their children can access."
And then there's more about that, but you can find out about that if you go to Jill Noble's page, it's a public comment. Now that is from November 15th, 2022. If you want, we'll try and get it for you. But it just says the library will adopt a written, public accessible collection of development policy addressing how selections are made considering appropriateness of the age and maturity level of the minors. No event or presentation shall be held at the library without age appropriate designation affixed to any publication, website, advertisement for such event or presentation. No age appropriate materials in any form as defined in the library's collection. Development policy shall be knowingly displayed in the library in areas designated by the library containing materials predominantly for minors. No funds received shall be used to purchase or acquire materials in any form that appeal to the prurient.
I had not heard that term today till the state director from [inaudible 00:50:53] mentioned it in an email this morning. The period having or encouraging the excessive interest in sexual matters, interest of a minor. Libraries also would be required to honor a parent's decision as to what material their child had access to in the library. Parents would have the right to challenge a library's age appropriate designation for any material. The joint committee on amending the rules must approve. There's a proposed rules once approved, they'll become policy. Is this what you're talking about, Stuart, this administrative rules?
Stuart Baggish:
Yes, that's great. That would do go a long way in helping libraries that are paid for with tax dollars to be prohibited from hosting drag queen story hour. One thing that the libraries are concerned with is funding. They all have fundraisers to try and keep their doors open and their employees paid. And when the state says, okay, you're going to have to do that on your own where you're not going to receive any state funding or you're going to be subject to legal action by the attorney general's office for violating state law by using library facilities to host a drag queen story hour for children. That I think would go a long way towards putting the brakes on this kind of thing. That's a really good law. And that would be-
Tamara Scott:
And that's a Secretary of State.
Stuart Baggish:
Yeah. Yeah. And that's-
Tamara Scott:
That's a Secretary of State who put that forward. Hats off to Jay Ashcroft, who's a guest on this show. That's a great idea.
Stuart Baggish:
Yeah, it's a great idea and I hope it goes into effect in Missouri and I hope other states model that. That's the type of proactive governmental approach that we like to see because again, it keeps inappropriate material away from minors. They've got no business doing this with kids.
Tamara Scott:
And it puts parents back in the driver's seat of having control of, one, your tax dollars, but two, your children and what they see. Stuart Baggish, I want to thank you for coming on today. He's an attorney licensed in California, Florida, and Texas willing to help other states get good legislation. The verbiage is key that will stand when we bring forward some of these issues. If you want to give anything in the last 30 seconds, I'll give it to you. Stuart, thank you for joining me today.
Stuart Baggish:
Well, thank you for having me. I represent teachers, I represent parents, I represent some students even in lawsuits and administrative actions with school districts that are problematic. And I am available to represent folks in the audience who are having problems in the state of Texas. I am licensed in California and Florida as well. And if you're in a state that I'm not licensed in, I can probably help connect you with a lawyer in your state who can help you out. So if you're having problems, let me know and I'll do whatever I can to help you to fight back against this because it's gone too far.
Tamara Scott:
Thank you, Stuart Baggish. Thank you to our audience. Those of you who follow along, this is not a fluff and stuff show for entertainment. You get great information. We try to bring it to you, put it at your fingertips, and now you can take action. You are responsible for what you know, but what a great way for you to make a difference. Much of it can be done with phone calls right now or the internet, connecting with legislators, perhaps your Secretary of State. This is model. This is a model legislative, well, it's not legislative, it's administrative rule here from Jay Ashcroft out of Missouri. Hats off to them. And thanks to Jill Noble for making us aware of that today. As we tell you, Friday, we'll be back, Freedom Friday, talking with our J6, those who are being held hostage without trial, without due process, Pelosi's political prisoners. We'll be talking with some of their families and some more of those folks. Thank you for keeping them in your prayers. As we tell you, live boldly, love better, laugh bigger, be encouraged, and never be complacent.
NOTE ADDED 28 JANUARY 2023:
For additional help on legislative means to stop the indoctrination, see this from the author of the Children's Internet Protection Act, a federal law that requires Internet filtering in public libraries in certain circumstances:
Istook, Ernest. Ernest Istook Interview Transcript. Interview by Dawn Hawkins, April 17, 2012. https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1Ezx9mmFxNwu_6QSmbWbzUY_C-qo6SBaxG9C_BLRPvp8/edit.
SECOND NOTE ADDED 28 JANUARY 2023:
I'm already getting terrific reactions to the publication of this information. @BChiaradio14 said:
Dan, thanks for sending this. Based on this, I am going to refine my complaint using the new standards Baggish mentions and that you and I discussed. I’m sending a video of my last school committee appearance, where I called for an independent audit of all of our school libraries, and on all teacher classroom libraries. I also called for a revamping of the teacher grant system, under which a lot of these inappropriate books enter the schools. I also called for new sources, other than the ALA, and New York Times, to be used as reco sources by library media specialists. I need some conservative sources. Do you know any? I need your advice on all three of these things. Thanks, Dan.
Robert Chiaradio Requests Independent Audit of Westerly, RI, Public School Libraries for Age Appropriate Content, 2023. https://rumble.com/v269gaw-bob-chiaradio-requests-independent-audit-of-westerly-ri-public-school.html.
Others recommended this terrific new book I'm going to order:
"The Great Parent Revolt: How Parents and Grassroots Leaders Are Fighting Critical Race Theory in America's Schools," by Lance Izumi, Wenyuan Wu, McKenzie Richards, December 7, 2022.
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