Showing posts with label BannedBooks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BannedBooks. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 29, 2026

Has Public Education Become a PSYOP??



Has Public Education Become a PSYOP??

In the 1938 play Gas Light, a husband dims the lamps while insisting nothing has changed, driving his wife to question her sanity. Over the past several years, a scaled-up version of this tactic, called “gaslighting” has unfolded systemically in America's public schools and libraries.

Systemic gaslighting is widely recognized as a form of psychological warfare (also known as psychological operations or PSYOPS). Definitions and examples appear consistently in psychology, sociology, military doctrine, and historical analysis. The aim to of a PSYOP is to distort perceptions of reality, induce self-doubt, demoralize targets, and achieve nearly unbreakable control or dominance without using physical force.

Systemic and organized gaslighting is demonstrated by activity scaled beyond individuals to institutions including schools and libraries, media in any form, governments on all levels, and corporations. It involves coordinated repetitive manipulation, characterizing valid concerns as abnormal or denying observable patterns, and the rewriting of shared history, events and reality —to make groups question their collective sanity, memories, perceptions and/or even lived experiences. This creates a "surreal" environment where the intended powerful narrative becomes the only one allowed.

So what's the allowed narrative? 


Thousands of books available to children give subtle hints or come right out and say that children may not be the sex they think they are. 

"But having a penis isn't what makes you a boy. Having a vulva isn't what makes you a girl." (p. 71 Sex is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg)

"Maybe you're called a boy but you know you're a girl. You know how girls are treated and what they do. That's how you want to be treated and what you want to do."(p. 84 Sex is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg)

"Maybe you're called a girl but you know you're a boy. You know how boys are treated and what they do. That's how you want to be treated and what you want to do" (p. 84 Sex is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg)

That's 662 pages of gender confusion in one children's book in thousands of public libraries. 

                                    Why would any children's

              book have 662 pages? 


(Editor's Note) Not sure why the downloaded version shows this page count, but the hardback version page count is 160 pages, pointed out by a reader. 
Same question applies...why would any children's book have 160 pages? Does anyone believe a first grader will read 160 pages to themselves? 


Social Transitioning of Children Did Not Occur in a Vacuum

Public schools became primary vectors for the systemic gaslighting. Over 1,000 U.S. districts—educating millions of children—have adopted policies allowing or requiring staff to socially transition students (new names, pronouns, bathrooms, clothing, access to therapists) without parental notification. In California and New York, frameworks explicitly state students control their "transition" at school, even against family wishes. Teachers act as de facto therapists offering affirmation, often hiding "gender support plans" in separate files kept secret from parents. The public school curriculum and library materials flooded the children with content regarding sexual orientation, gender ideology, promotion of early sexualization, sexually explicit descriptions and illustrations, and separation form parents and families.  WorldCat (the world's largest library catalog, covering thousands of U.S. libraries) shows thousands of titles with subject headings like "Transgender people," "Gender identity," "Transgenderism," or related terms. Thousands of those books are available in public libraries available to children, and in school libraries where parents cannot see what the child is reading or able to view.

Schools justified secrecy by claiming parents might be unsupportive, equating normal caution with abuse. This inverts reality: concerned parents exercising basic oversight become the villains, while institutions insert themselves as the child's true guardians.

Add in Critical Race Theory, Anti-Capitalist Ideology, and Social Activism and stir with Gender Ideology. 

This mirrors classic psychological warfare.

The children suffered, but the PSYOP raged on 

Has the PSYOP had any impact? Decide for yourself...

The numbers reveal an unprecedented social contagion. Across the United States, diagnoses of gender dysphoria among children ages 6–17 nearly tripled from 2017 to 2021, totaling more than 121,000 cases in that period alone. Referrals to gender clinics exploded—sometimes 500% or more in a few years—with a sharp shift toward adolescent females, many with comorbidities like autism, trauma, or mental health issues. Earlier years had far lower rates.

The most comprehensive and widely cited source is the 2022 Reuters/Komodo Health analysis of claims covering ~40 million pediatric patients annually (from a broader pool of ~330 million patients):
  • 2017: 15,172 new Gender Dysphoria diagnoses
  • 2018: ~18,321 (approximate, part of steady rise)
  • 2019: ~21,375
  • 2020: 24,847
  • 2021: 42,167 (70% increase from 2020)

Cumulative 2017–2021: At least 121,882 unique minors newly diagnosed. These are undercounts, as they exclude out-of-pocket care, uninsured cases, or undiagnosed individuals

Oddly enough, the DSM-V reclassified “gender identity disorder” to “gender dysphoria” in 2013. Why change a diagnostic category for a disorder that affected less than 0.014% of boys (roughly 5-14 per 100,000) and less than 0.003% (roughly 2-3 per 100,000) of girls at that time? (Bright Path, April 27, 2025 ed.) The incidence was a clinical rarity, and yet the DSM IV required revision for this particular diagnosis.

Did this all start in 2013?

What kind of coordinated effort would it take to see a 70% increase in one year?
These statistics are not representative of a organic cultural evolution.

It's not just the diagnosis, it's the SURGERIES...

  • 2019–2023 (5 years) — Do No Harm Database (most recent detailed claims-based analysis): 5,747 unique minors underwent gender-affirming surgeries. This includes ~4,160 breast removals (mastectomies) and hundreds of genital procedures (e.g., ~660 phalloplasties reported in some summaries). Total gender-related interventions (surgeries + hormones/blockers): 13,994 minors.
  • 2016–2020 (4–5 years) — JAMA Network Open study (national hospital data): 3,678 gender-affirming surgeries for ages 12–18.
  • ~3,215 chest/breast procedures (vast majority).
  • ~405 genital surgeries. Overall US gender-affirming surgeries (all ages) rose sharply in this period.
  • 2019–2021 (3 years) — Reuters/Komodo Health insurance claims: At least 776 mastectomies on ages 13–17 with prior gender dysphoria diagnosis. 56 genital surgeries in the same group.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  


  • This coordinated psychological operation (PSYOP) is aimed at reshaping young minds on gender and sexuality while undermining parental authority and biological reality with a consequential breakdown of society as a whole. 



    "Only boys and girls? What about the rest of us?"
    (Sex is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg) 

    This book, and thousands of others like it that promote gender confusion are In the Children's Section of thousands of public libraries and schools. 


    WHAT EXACTLY DID IT TAKE TO TALK THOUSANDS OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN INTO GENDER DESTRUCTION SURGERY WITH 
    NO RESEARCH TO BACK IT UP? 


    Doctors who deliver babies 
    might not know what they are 
    looking at and can't tell the
    difference between boys and girls.
    (Sex is a Funny Word
    by Cory Silverberg) If even the doctor can be 
    confused, then it's surely ok for children to wonder.    

    Mechanisms of the PSYOP

    First, narrative engineering and term redefinition

    "Gender-affirming care" sounds compassionate but often means puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries with weak or no evidence/research to support the outcomes. According to a U.S. Health and Human Services Report in 2025, comprehensive peer-reviewed analysis found significant long-term risks for impact on bone density, fertility, sexual function, and cognitive development and "very weak evidence of benefit" for puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries in minors. Despite the lack of research into the long term effects of this unprecedented care model for minors, considerable resources in health care and education were devoted to promoting the ideology and interventions, using                         children as the pawns on the chessboard. 

    Destruction of gender is redefined as affirmation. 

    The second mechanism of a PSYOP is pathologizing resistance

    Pathologizing is the "practice of viewing or characterizing normal human behaviors, emotions, or variations as medically or psychologically abnormal, disordered, or diseased." 

    Parents who dare to object face smears, job threats, legal action, accusations of harming their children with their "oppressive" views, and are publicly blamed as group for youth suicide rates—despite evidence that social transition and medicalization do not clearly reduce long-term mental health risks and may exacerbate them via medical complications or regret. This is a prime example of systemic organized gaslighting pushed by media and organizations that promote the PSYOP in our public schools and libraries. 

    Observable explicit material in children's sections becomes "diversity." 

    According to PEN America (organization that tracks book challenges) any challenge to a book is a "book ban." "PEN America has documented nearly 23,000 book bans in public schools nationwide since 2021, a number without precedent. Learn more about the dangerous mix of activist groups and vague legislation has led to this wave of censorship in our latest report. " 

    The PEN report states "This right – the right to discover – is being taken from students under the guise of their “protection.” Over the past four years, a misleading campaign to “protect children” alongside advocacy for “parental rights” has been weaponized to diminish students’ First Amendment rights in schools, sow distrust in librarians and educators, and diminish the ability of authors and illustrators to connect with their intended audiences. In this upside down world, any rights of young people as students are somehow subservient to the absolute rights of their parents." 

    This is good time to revisit the definitions of gaslighting. 

    The American Library Association(ALA) also tracks "book challenges," labeling parental requests to review or relocate explicit titles as "bans" or "censorship". In 2025, ALA reported thousands of challenges, with a large share involving gender/sexuality books. According to the ALA, along with the schools and libraries that subscribe to the organization’s policies, parents expressing concern about sexually explicit materials, including trans ideology, being given to their minor children without parents knowledge or  permission, are not exercising oversight; they are “banning books” or “promoting censorship" while violating children’s “Freedom to Read” whatever the library wants to give them, at any age the school or library chooses, regardless of parental objection.

    Questioning rapid-onset gender dysphoria of ROGD (linked to social media and peer influence) or the reversal of decades of sex-based child development knowledge makes one a "Transphobe." 

      

    The third mechanism of a PSYOP is exploiting authority and repetition

    Schools, backed by federal guidance in prior administrations, unions, and activist medical groups (The American Medical Association, The American School Counselor Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics) normalize the idea that children as young as preschool can "know" their gender identity contradicts biology, and that parents do not have to be informed by the school. Curricula was developed to teach sex as a spectrum, "chest binders" as harmless, the virtue signal of inclusion, and resolution of gender dysphoria as rare—contrary to historical data where most childhood dysphoria resolved on it's own by age 18.  Repetition via activities, books, clothes, make-up, video games, clubs, events, parades, entertainment, media, movies, cable TV, streaming apps, music, and social media apps creates the "pseudo-reality." 

    Thousands of public school classrooms have symbols of LGBTQIA+ ideology visible to students of all ages

    ALL DAY EVERY DAY.

    If everyone affirms, your child's confusion must surely be innate identity, not social influence or underlying mental issues, and certainly not "confusion." 


    This is warfare, not merely manipulation

    Intent and scale cannot be ignored.  

    Individual gaslighting seeks personal control. Systemic versions are organized campaigns (e.g., coordinated messaging, institutional policies, or elite-driven narratives) designed for much broader impact: silencing dissent, maintaining false hierarchies, or shaping public behavior over a generation. This matches PSYOPS doctrine exactly.

    Classic PSYOP objectives

    Psychological warfare mechanisms rely on repetition to normalize falsehoods until they feel true, or until reality is questionable (boys can be girls by identifying as female, children get to choose any of 42 genders, day in-day out in classrooms, special events, parades, constant displays) promoted authority (institutions/media heralded as the "trusted" source and parents hearing “Trust the experts” 24 hours a day).

    The goal is dependency on the gaslighter’s intentionally altered version of reality. As a predictable consequence of the plan, confused children turn to affirming adults at school. Parents, gas-lit into self-doubt are caused to hesitate ("Am I harming my child by questioning any of this?" and “Would you rather have a dead son than a living daughter?”).

    The institution becomes the top of the false hierarchy installed by the PSYOP and parents become the outsiders having to fight straight up a sheer cliff to restore their children and their parental rights.

    Now a PSYOP has Control In the Real World

    We all face daily organized gaslighting in state-level disinformation, political propaganda, corporate cover-ups, cultural institutions redefining norms until there no longer are any. Terms including grammar standards are altered at will, including pronouns, and new words like “Cis” and “misgendered.” The ALA framing parents as “censors” and all library reviews as "book bans" is an dual example of redefining terms and pathologizing resistance with intention to gaslight parents on a systemic level. 

    The ALA claim that anyone is banning books or committing censorship with regards to children's access is an more deeply misleading layer of systemic gaslighting and contributes to the PSYOP. There's no truly banned books in the United States. Any book can be ordered at any time, no adult has restricted access to any materials. Moving a book about blow jobs and anal sex out of the children's section and into the adult section is not banning the book, nor is it censorship, according to Ginsberg v. New York (1968)

    That's gaslighting on a whole new level

    It all erodes collective trust in evidence, senses, or community standards--classic demoralization warfare.

    In public education, this PSYOP manifests through deliberate, repeated efforts by schools, libraries, teachers' unions, medical organizations, and aligned media to promote gender confusion—particularly among impressionable children—while framing resistance as irrational, uncaring, or harmful. The ALA keeps a “hate map” on it’s website to redirect parents away from any resource that might support them in questioning the achieved new reality.


    The Kansas State Library Handbook refers to anyone, including parents, as "censors" if they are challenging the placement of a obscene book where children can get to it, and proclaims alignment with the ALA, when the previous 2017 edition referred to Kansas statues as the guidance for policies and compliance. 

    The battlefield is the classroom, where perception itself is the prize and the kids are not coming home with trophies.

    Public education and children’s libraries in America have functioned as primary medium for one of the most ambitious psychological operations in modern history, fitting every definition and historical comparison. Through coordinated curricula embedded through all levels of education, thousands of ideologically loaded books, calculated undermining of parent's rights, secret social transitions, political enforcement, and institutional gaslighting of both children and parents, an entire generation has been subjected to systematic confusion about biological reality, parental authority, and their own bodies. The inexplicable explosion in gender dysphoria diagnoses, irreversible medical interventions on minors with lifelong complications including sterility, and severed family bonds did not occur organically—it was engineered.

    Legacy of a PSYOP

    • Key Long-Term Changes:

      • Destruction of trust in schools, libraries, medical institutions, experts, and trusted adults who insisted “gender-affirming care” was settled science and that children were in danger if parents didn't affirm the PSYOP, with disastrously life altering consequences. 
      • Deepened Polarization and Division: PSYOPs thrive on “us vs. them” narratives. Once entrenched, these fractures persist through echo chambers, weakened social cohesion, and hardened ideological lines, making national reconciliation difficult. Families are fractured, communities are divided, and any questions are labeled “hate.”
      • Normalized New Norms and Policies: Operations that begin as messaging can successfully become “common sense” — even when later evidence contradicts it — embedding altered attitudes in policy, culture, education, public behavior and law—boys in girls’ sports and bathrooms, irreversible surgeries on healthy adolescents, and the rewriting of basic biology as “inclusion."
      • Psychological and Cultural Residue: Populations often experience lingering anxiety, moral injury, and a pervasive “psyop realism” — the belief that reality itself is manipulated. Generational effects are common with younger people, whether observers or victims,  carrying transformed worldviews shaped by the operation. Already evident among the American young: elevated mental health crises, physical and emotional regret, escalating suicide rates, de-transition stories and court cases now emerging, and a entire generation taught to distrust their own eyes, their parents, and their bodies.
      • Institutional blowback: Schools and libraries that weaponized “diversity” against biological reality now face plummeting public confidence, lawsuits, and parental exodus to homeschooling and private options. When a PSYOP ends, society rarely returns to its pre-operation state. These coordinated efforts to shape perceptions, beliefs, and behaviors through propaganda, media, disinformation, or targeted messaging leave deep, likely irreversible traces. 
    No matter how hard fought the end, a concluded PSYOP does not simply fade away. It reshapes the information environment, incentives, and collective psychology in lasting ways. Recovery requires transparency, counter-narratives, scientific data and time — but once public trust is broken and new norms are installed, reversing the damage is very slow and uncertain. The greatest enduring risk in open societies is the normalization of psychological manipulation itself and a legacy of public doubt.

    Just as the husband in Gas Light could not restore his wife’s sanity by simply turning the lamps back up, society cannot undo the damage by quietly shelving a few books or tweaking policies. The surreal environment created by this PSYOP—where parents are villains, doctors “can’t tell” the sex of a newborn, and children are manipulated to reject their own biology—has already reshaped lives and a generation’s understanding of reality.


    The only path forward is relentless truth-telling: biological sex is real and binary, most childhood gender distress resolves naturally, and parents—not schools, not libraries, and not political powers—hold primary authority over their children’s upbringing. Public education must be reclaimed from ideological capture before another generation is sacrificed on the altar of this experiment.

    Not only must the lamps be turned back on immediately- the entire house must be rebuilt- on reality, evidence, and unequivocal parental rights.










    URL of this page: https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2026/04/has-public-education-become-psyop.html



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    Thursday, December 18, 2025

    RealClearPolitics Commentary: 'Wake Up, Parents: American Library Association Is (Still) Grooming Our Kids'

    The following "Commentary" is authored by me and published at RealClearPolitics.  Emphasis, hyperlinks, and graphics in original:




    Wake Up, Parents: American Library Association Is (Still) Grooming Our Kids
    COMMENTARY

    By Dan Kleinman


    Imagine if your 15-year-old came to my house, and I gave them a book about edgy sex positions? What if I gave your 16-year-old a book with graphic illustrations of oral or anal sex?

    Would you be happy with that? Or would you be mighty suspicious of me?

    Many parents may not know it, but there is an ongoing fight over certain books and whether they should be given to minors without their parents’ knowledge or consent. That’s what the American Library Association wants. The ALA recently launched a nationwide campaign against so-called “book bans,” with ALA President Sam Helmick (they/them) saying it is about the “freedom to read.”

    Except, the ALA’s critics do not want to “ban” anything. Nor do they want to challenge the freedom to read – I know because I’m one of them. We do, however, want people to know that the ALA wants inappropriate materials in your kids’ hands, regardless of your parental preferences.

    In 2023, Sen. Mike Lee revealed a video of Deborah Caldwell-Stone, then-director of the American Library Associations Office for Intellectual Freedom, admitting that the ALA is reframing sexually inappropriate content for minors as “diverse materials” focused on “inclusion.” Caldwell-Stone said the previously quiet part out loud.

    It shocked me because I always thought that ALA librarians were the “good guys.” After all, who ever imagined that librarians would play the part of creepy guy in a trenchcoat?

    But some of society’s most trusted leaders misuse their power and prestige as cover, at the expense of our kids (think about the Catholic priest scandals). While a tiny percentage of priests are up to no good, the wrongdoers use the cover of their innocent job titles to engage in perverse conduct. In a similar vein, librarians who want to “reframe” perverse fetish instruction manuals as “diverse education” aren’t thinking about your kids’ best interests.

    One of the books in question is “Let’s Talk About It,” which is aimed at teenagers with graphic images of how to insert butt plugs or advice on fetish pornography websites. Another is “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” which contains multiple pages of illustrations depicting oral sex. The explicit images were entered into the congressional record in 2023 for all to see (fair warning). The pictures are worth a thousand words.

    I have reported on these developments at the ALA through my blog “SafeLibraries,” exposing those who are advocating for minors to read books like “Gender Queer” without parental knowledge. I have regularly posted on social media about how this exposure constitutes “grooming,” and I have revealed individual librarians who are intent – with the ALA’s backing – on keeping these books available to kids.

    One such librarian is Amanda Jones, who has publicly supported “Gender Queer” and “Let’s Talk About It” as suitable for kids. Those who dare to question “Gender Queer,” are in her words, “targeting LGBTQ and other marginalized communities.” Now, Jones has sued me in federal court for defamation and false light for calling that “grooming.” (I have filed an anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss the case with the help of veteran First Amendment lawyer Marc Randazza, and it is currently pending.) I stand by that opinion.

    Let’s be very clear: This is not a partisan issue. So-called “book bans” are abhorrent, and even sexually explicit books like “Gender Queer” have a place on Amazon.com or at Barnes & Noble. However, that place is not somewhere kids have unfettered access.

    None of us – Democrat or Republican – grew up in a world with images of blowjobs or butt plugs on the shelves. Is it “banning books” if the public library doesn’t stock Marquis De Sade? Is it “censorship” when sexual content can be found everywhere but the kids’ section?

    For the ALA and individual librarians to recommend books about “marginalized communities,” that is one thing. As they grow older, kids should learn about differences in race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. But a 14-year-old should never be encouraged by their local librarian to read about oral or anal sex – full stop.

    This is not normal. Even left-wing friends of mine have been repulsed after skimming “Gender Queer,” especially at a time when U.S. literacy is plummeting (according to even leftist librarians). Nevertheless, the ALA has joined forces with Hollywood to celebrate Amanda Jones in a new documentary called “The Librarians,” ironically produced by “Sex and the City” actress Sarah Jessica Parker.

    I have been called a “Nazi” and a “fascist” for taking this stance, which is shared by parents on both sides of the political aisle. But the ALA won’t silence us, and it is time for all parents to speak out against child grooming – especially in our libraries.


    Dan Kleinman is the owner of SafeLibraries educational services. He is also executive director of the World Library Association, an alternative to the American Library Association.




    Other URLS:
    Related URLs: 

    Marc Randazza - Jones v. Kleinman: randazza.com/lawsuits/jones-v-kleinman/
    Marc Randazza X post: x.com/marcorandazza/status/2001766590044606917 (X set it as "age-restricted adult content" although school librarians make it available to schoo children)

    Monday, January 27, 2025

    US Government Exposes 'Book Ban' Hoax; What Parents and School Boards Can Do Next

    The United States Department of Education has found the "banned books" claim by the American Library Association [ALA] from Chicago, IL, is a "hoax."

    See:

    It has ended the charade, dropping multiple actions against parents.  The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has:
    1. "dismissed 11 complaints related to so-called 'book bans.'  The complaints alleged that local school districts' removal of age-inappropriate, s[]xually explicit, or obscene materials from their school libraries created a hostile environment for students"
    2. pointing out this is, "a meritless claim premised upon a dubious legal theory."
    3. "Effective Jan. 24, 2025, OCR has rescinded all department guidance issued under the theory that a school district’s removal of age-inappropriate books from its libraries may violate civil rights laws."
    4. "OCR is also dismissing six additional pending allegations of book banning"
    5. "and [OCR] will no longer employ a 'book ban coordinator' to investigate local school districts and parents working to protect students from obscene content."
    We learn from this:
    1. Claims of book bans from ALA are and have been a hoax 
      1. (just as I have been reporting here for decades)
    2. Claims of book bans are "meritless" and "premised upon a dubious legal theory" 
      1. (one that ALA made up as part of its approximately 60 year efforts to remove parental rights to better indoctrinate children in schools, powered by taxpayer resources and ALA-trained school librarians: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PZ2pDhKhRAtlNgR7gek_1kcdGFoskHpa/view?usp=sharing)
    3. Claims of book bans are such a hoax that the federal government has dropped eleven complaints about removal of inappropriate materials from school libraries.
    4. Claims of book bans are such a hoax that policy was rescinded where the policy claims hoax book bans violated civil rights laws.
    5. Removing inappropriate books from school libraries doesn't violate civil rights laws.
      1. (Pervasively vulgar and educationally unsuitable books may be removed from school libraries, and removed immediately, without the ALA claim that a review committee is needed, the book must stay on the shelves until the process has ended, etc., all made up requirements from Chicago's ALA that made up these rules in the first place.  So if an inappropriate book is in your school library or a classroom library, it may be removed immediately under the law, namely, the Pico case.  Further, all those trans and gender ideology books are educationally unsuitable, so they may be removed en masse immediately.  That's right, anything educationally unsuitable may be removed immediately.  And when librarians cry foul, remind them they have been working for decades to create an imbalance of books where the trans ideology now vastly outnumbers the books they have slowly weeded out, like Shakespeare and other dead white guys, as ALA puts it.)
    6. Six allegations of book banning are being dropped because book banning claims are a hoax.
    7. A "book banning coordinator" is being fired because book banning in schools is a hoax.
    Based on this, what does that mean, what can parents and school boards do next:
    1. All existing Freedom to Read Acts, Libraries For All Acts, Right to Read Acts currently in existence that ALA has promoted, which is all of them, are instantly suspect as they have been based on a book ban hoax.  They should be repealed or legally defeated.  It's law based on a hoax and written by the ALA that perpetrated the hoax in the first place.  It's law that directly harms children.
    2. All legislation seeking to create Freedom to Read Acts, Libraries For All Acts, Right to Read Acts are based on the book ban hoax, so they should be dropped or otherwise disposed.  "The elimination of federal oversight in these matters shifts the responsibility of determining which books are available in school libraries entirely to local school boards, districts, and parents.  For proponents of the change, this represents a victory for parental rights and local governance.  It allows communities to shape their educational environments based on shared values and priorities without federal intervention." (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/education/news/trump-education-department-ends-biden-era-book-ban-hoax-plan-what-it-means-for-school-libraries-across-us/articleshow/117577727.cms). True.  And the ALA's Freedom to Read Acts, Libraries For All Acts, Right to Read Acts are intentionally designed to take those rights away and leave them in the hands of ALA itself via local ALA organizations, like state associations of school librarians.
    3. All school librarians promoting opposition to book bans are promoting a hoax and using public funding to do so.  They should be required to stop promoting the hoax.  If they refuse, or if they claim to comply but keep using fugitive pedagogy to keep teaching the hoax, they should be fired and their licenses to teach anywhere revoked.  Sounds harsh but do it to a few and the rest will get the message that the law controls, not Chicago's ALA community organizers.
    4. Parents may now assume, instead of that librarians are experts who must know what they are doing so we should defer to them, that school librarians have been hoaxing them for a long time and that providing school children with explicit material is not right, and parents have the right and the power to force school boards to comply with the law instead of with Chicago's ALA.
    5. ALA has reacted to US DOE's action by labeling US DOE, Trump and his voters as arbitrary, cruel, homophobic, racist, dictatorial, and thinking they are above the law, all while wasting tax payer money to defend "book bans."  https://www.ala.org/news/2025/01/book-bans-are-real  Well, US DOE just removed the tax payer waste excuse regarding a situation ALA forced in the first place with its banned books hoax.  And the public now sees ALA's defense is the naked statement "Banned Books Are Real" while attacking people as racist and homophobic, showing they have absolutely no legitimate argument that the banned books hoax they created isn't a hoax.  ALA is just going to keep on attacking people.  Full disclosure, ALA has gotten me involved in five defamation suits to silence me or other parents, and I'm in three now concurrently.  All over the book ban hoax.
    6. Parents can stop being intimidated by school librarians crying about nonexistent book bans.
    7. School superintendents can stop being intimidated by school librarians crying about book bans.
    8. School board members can stop being intimidated by school librarians crying about book bans.
    9. School board members can rewrite school policies to remove any references to Chicago ALA's Library Bill of Rights and other diktat.  For example, get rid of the Library Bill of Rights that makes it age discrimination to keep kids from inappropriate material in direct violation of Board of Education v. Pico, allow inappropriate books to be removed immediately in accordance with Board of Education v. Pico, get rid of book review committees that are from ALA and not in the Pico case, and get rid of policies that require books be reviewed only by review sources librarians claim are legitimate.  In reality, that's a significant way ALA librarians force libraries to heavily balance in favor of gender ideology.  Meanwhile, librarians viciously attack wholesome material as inappropriate for public schools: "Moms For Liberty Published Their First Book; And the America First and America Best Group Used a Russian Illustrator For It," by Kelly Jensen, Well Sourced by Kelly Jensen, 25 January 2025.  And recall ALA trained librarians to block Christians from public library meeting rooms, like Kirk Cameron and Brave Books (https://www.kenningtonreport.com/p/alas-banned-books-and-censorship), while at the same time "sneakily" pushing drag queen gender ideology into public libraries (https://web.archive.org/web/20170612040326/https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intersections-glbt-book-month-dispatch-small-town-librarian). 
    10. Currently lawsuits against parents based on the book banning hoax, including those in which I'm involved, will possibly benefit from the federal government exposing the Chicago ALA's hoax.  ALA and its partners like PEN America have ongoing lawsuits in AL, FL, LA, NH, NJ, TX, WY, etc.  The federal government has already dumped 11 cases and 6 investigations.  We all shall see what happens to the current lawsuits ALA instigated.
    11. When you read what the hoax perpetrators themselves say in response to the US Department of Education's action on the book ban hoaxes, notice the response is always to attack the messenger:

    Now, everyone, stop being intimidated by librarians, even if they are in Hollywood documentaries about hoax book bans by Sarah Jessica Parker from which librarians are grifting (https://givebutter.com/pen).  Even if they are saying you have to have empathy, like librarian Martha Hickson says when donating $25 to PEN America, as shown above, since empathy is weaponized against you.  Stop your legislators from passing laws written by Chicago's ALA.  Start demanding your school boards dump the policies written by the hoaxers.  Your children being free from indoctrination and s[]xualization is more important than the feelings or even the jobs of school librarians.

    ALA's house of cards is about to fall.  Let it.

    By the way, here's where I proved it was ALA that infiltrated the White House with the banned books hoax:



    URL of this page: 



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    Saturday, December 16, 2023

    No Right to Trans Propagandize Kids in Schools: Florida AG Amicus Brief on Pico and School Libraries

    UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
    NORTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
    PENSACOLA DIVISION

    Case No. 3:23-cv-10385-TKW-ZCB


    PEN AMERICAN CENTER, INC., ET AL.,

              Plaintiffs,

                        v.

    ESCAMBIA COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD,

              Defendant.




    INTRODUCTION AND STATEMENT OF INTEREST

         Plaintiffs challenge “the decisions of the Escambia County School Board (‘the School Board’) to remove and restrict” certain materials in “public school libraries within the Escambia County School District.” DE25-1 at 1–2. The restrictions, Plaintiffs say, violate the First Amendment because the government may not restrict access to materials “based on viewpoint” or “deny students access to ideas with which” the “school board disagrees.” DE25-1 ¶¶ 218, 225 (cleaned up). But public-school systems make value-based judgments like that every day. They exclude materials like Nazi propaganda because they disagree that Nazis were wonderful, regardless of any educational value the materials may have. Viewpoint-based educational choices are constitutionally permissible because public-school systems, including their libraries, convey the government’s message, and, when the government speaks, it may “regulate the content of . . . its own message,” Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 833 (1995), “including choosing not to speak and speaking through the removal of speech that the government disapproves,” Gundy v. City of Jacksonville, 50 F.4th 60, 71 (11th Cir. 2022) (cleaned up). Plaintiffs—who include the authors and publishers of certain books restricted by Defendant—are free to take their concerns to the ballot box. See Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 555 U.S. 460, 468–69 (2009). But they have no constitutional right to inculcate Florida’s schoolchildren with their preferred ideas through Florida’s school libraries. To vindicate that principle, the Attorney General respectfully submits this amicus brief in support of Defendant’s motion to dismiss.

    ARGUMENT

    I.     PLAINTIFFS FAIL TO STATE A FIRST AMENDMENT CLAIM.

         1.  Plaintiffs contend that “[s]chool libraries are . . . of great importance to book authors and book publishers, especially with regard to books aimed at” their intended audience—“children and young adults.” DE25-1 ¶ 41. In their view, “[t]he libraries within the School District constitute, at a minimum, non-public forums,” and, “[b]ecause they are non-public forums, the School Board cannot” restrict access to materials “based on viewpoint.” Id. ¶ 218. That is wrong because Florida’s public-school libraries are a forum for government, not private, speech. And when the government speaks, it “can freely select the views that it wants to express, including choosing not to speak and speaking through the removal of speech that the government disapproves.” Gundy, 50 F.4th at 71(cleaned up).

         Although the Eleventh Circuit has not yet addressed whether the government’s “book collection (and book removal) decisions” for school libraries are “government speech,” ACLU of Fla., Inc. v. Miami-Dade Cnty. Sch. Bd., 557 F.3d 1177, 1201 (11th Cir. 2009),[ 1 ] the Supreme Court and Eleventh Circuit have repeatedly held that the government’s authority to “regulate the content of . . . its own message,” Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 833, includes the discretion to select materials and content for compilation and presentation to citizens, be it a government parade,[ 2 ] a broadcasted debate,[ 3 ] a state-university commencement,[ 4 ] or a state-sponsored art gallery.[ 5 ] In Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, for example, the Supreme Court held that the selection of monuments for a public park was government speech, even when the monuments were funded or donated by private parties. 555 U.S. at 470–73. “Government decisionmakers select[ed] the monuments that portray[ed] what they view[ed] as appropriate for the place in question, taking into account such content-based factors as esthetics, history, and local culture.” Id. at 472. Accordingly, the “decision to accept certain privately donated monuments while rejecting respondent’s” was “government speech,” and the government was not required to “maintain viewpoint neutrality” in making that decision. Id. At 479, 481. 

         As the Supreme Court has explained, “forum analysis and heightened judicial scrutiny . . . are also incompatible with the discretion that [government-run] libraries must have to fulfill their traditional missions.” United States v. Am. Libr. Ass’n, Inc., 539 U.S. 194, 205 (2003) (plurality op.). Like the monument park in Summum, a library’s purpose is “to provide its patrons with materials of requisite and appropriate quality, not to create a public forum for [private parties] to express themselves.” Id. at 209 n.4. “To fulfill their traditional missions, public libraries must have broad discretion to decide what material to provide to their patrons,” and need not “provide universal coverage.” Id. at 201. Like the selection of monuments, “the government speaks through its selection of which books to put on the shelves and which books to exclude,” People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Inc. v. Gittens, 414 F.3d 23, 28 (D.C. Cir. 2005), because that selection reflects the government’s view about what materials have the “requisite and appropriate quality,” Am. Libr. Ass’n, Inc., 539 U.S. at 204, 206 (plurality op.) (citations omitted); see also Bryant v. Gates, 532 F.3d 888, 898 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (the government speaks when it “compil[es]” the “speech of third parties” in a public library). And because the compilation of library materials is government speech, the First Amendment does not bar the government from making viewpoint-based choices about what to curate. See Gittens, 414 F.3d at 29; Am. Libr. Ass’n, 539 U.S. at 204–05 (plurality op.).

         That principle applies with even more force in public-school libraries, the purpose of which is to support the government’s educational mission by “providing materials that properly supplement the basic readings assigned through the standard curriculum.” Zykan v. Warsaw Cmty. Sch. Corp., 631 F.2d 1300, 1308 (7th Cir. 1980). By curating a school library, the government conveys its view on which books have the “requisite and appropriate quality” to bolster student development. Am. Libr. Ass’n, 539 U.S. at 204 (plurality op.) (citation omitted). “Absurd results would follow,” Dean v. Warren, 12 F.4th 1248, 1266 (11th Cir. 2021), if private parties were allowed to hijack the government’s message by forcing their preferred books onto school-library shelves, see Hurley v. Irish-Am. Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Grp. of Bos., Inc., 515 U.S. 557, 572–73 (1995) (parade organizers not required to include voices they wished to exclude); Leake, 14 F.4th at 1253 (same for government parade organizer). Forcing the government “to speak” in a school library “what [it] do[es] not believe on pain of” lawsuit, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, 143 S. Ct. 2298, 2313–14 (2023), would put policy decisions about what to teach in schools in the hands of litigants rather than elected representatives. “Indeed, it is not easy to imagine how government could function if it lacked this freedom.” Summum, 555 U.S. at 468. “If every citizen were to have a right to insist” that his preferred books be included in a school’s library, “debate over issues of great concern to the public would be limited to those in the private sector.” Id. (citing Keller v. State Bar of Cal., 496 U.S. 1, 12–13 (1990)). The government would not only have to curate those litigants’ preferred materials, but also reallocate resources and student attention away from those that advance the government’s selected educational mission. See Mayer v. Monroe Cnty. Cmty. Sch. Corp., 474 F.3d 477, 479 (7th Cir. 2007).

         Plaintiffs make much of Defendant’s professed commitment in its policy manual to provide in school libraries “a wide range of materials of different difficulty levels, with diversity of appeal and representing different points of view.” DE25-1 ¶¶ 39–40 (citing DE25-1 Exh. 1 at 8–9). But the policy manual merely identifies that goal as one among many competing objectives for Defendant’s libraries—among them, “provid[ing] a broad background of information in all areas of knowledge,” “support[ing] the general educational goals of the District and the objectives of specific courses,” and “[s]upport[ing] the professional needs of teachers and administrators.” DE25-1 Exh. 1 at 7–8. If anything, the policy manual confirms that Defendant’s libraries are not a forum for free expression, warning that “[n]o parent, guardian or resident of the county has the right to determine the reading, viewing or listening resources for students other than their own children” and reserving to school officials—not authors, publishers, or students—the authority to “mak[e] the final selection for library-media.” Id. at 9, 12. Far from the blanket “accommodat[ion]” of “all applicants” that reflects a “lack of meaningful involvement in the selection” process and thus creates a forum for free expression, Defendant’s policies show that school officials “always select[]” their library materials and “maintain direct control” of them. Shurtleff v. City of Boston, 142 S. Ct. 1583, 1592–93 (2022) (citing Summum, 555 U.S. at 472–473, and Walker v. Tex. Div., Sons of Confederate Veterans, 576 U.S. 200, 213 (2015)). State law indeed requires as much. See Fla. Stat. § 1006.28(2)(d)(1) (“Each book made available to students through a school district library . . . must be selected by a school district employee . . ., regardless of whether the book is purchased, donated, or otherwise made available to students.”); see also id. § 1006.28(2)(d)(2) (requiring that “[e]ach district school board . . . adopt procedures for developing library . . . collections” to “support . . . state academic standards and aligned curriculum, and the academic needs of students and faculty.”).

         2.  The Student Plaintiffs are just as wrong that the First Amendment bars the government from restricting library books “for the purpose of ‘deny[ing] students access to ideas with which’ the school district disagrees.” DE25-1 ¶ 225 (citing Pico, 457 U.S. at 870–71 (plurality op.). The government has no constitutional obligation to present educational material with which it disagrees. Because a “listener’s right to receive information is reciprocal to the speaker’s right to speak,” Doe ex rel. Doe v. Governor of N.J., 783 F.3d 150, 155 (3d Cir. 2015), that right cannot be deployed to interfere with the government’s own message. Students certainly have no more right to control what the government puts in its libraries than they do to control the content of a school cheer, see Dean, 12 F.4th at 1265–66 (cheerleading is government speech), or the message they communicate while participating in a training practicum, see Keeton v. Anderson-Wiley, 664 F.3d 865, 877 (11th Cir. 2011)(same for school practica).

         In arguing the contrary, Plaintiffs attach considerable significance to Board of  Education v. Pico, in which a plurality of the Supreme Court concluded that school library materials may not be selected “in a narrowly partisan or political manner.” 457 U.S. at 870. But the Eleventh Circuit has recognized that Pico was “a badly fractured decision” that is “of no precedential value as to the application of the First Amendment to these issues” and “establishes no standard.” Miami-Dade Cnty. Sch. Bd., 557 F.3d at 1199–1200 (quotations omitted). In addition, Pico predates the Supreme Court’s government-speech cases, which—as Justice Rehnquist foreshadowed—would have required a different result in that case. See 457 U.S. at 920 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (“[T]he Court will far better serve the cause of First Amendment jurisprudence by candidly recognizing that the role of government as sovereign is subject to [stricter] limitations than [its] role” as “educator.”).

    II.     PLAINTIFFS FAIL TO STATE AN EQUAL PROTECTION CLAIM.

         Plaintiffs also claim that “[m]any of these books have been targeted simply because they address themes relating to race, sexuality, or gender identity” and, from that they infer the “intent . . . to exclude speech by authors based on their race, sexuality, or gender identity.” DE25-1 ¶ 236. In other words, Plaintiffs allege that Defendant’s governmental message constitutes invidious discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. That claim fails for the same reason as Plaintiffs’ First Amendment claims: “[A] government entity is entitled to say what it wishes and to select the views it wants to express,” with a notable exception for the establishment of religion. Am. Atheists, Inc. v. Port Auth. of N.Y. & N.J., 760 F.3d 227, 246 (2d Cir. 2014) (cleaned up) (rejecting equal protection claim alleging animus in the adoption of the September 11 Memorial at Ground Zero). Accordingly, “the Equal Protection Clause does not apply to government speech.” Fields v. Speaker of Penn. House of Representatives, 936 F.3d 142, 161 (3d Cir. 2019); see Freedom from Religion Found., Inc. v. City of Warren, 707 F.3d 686, 698 (6th Cir. 2013); Bloomberg v. Blocker, 586 F. Supp. 3d 1251, 1258 (M.D. Fla. 2022). That makes sense because, when—as here—the government speaks for itself rather than creating a forum for private speech, it necessarily treats all citizens equally.

    CONCLUSION

         For the foregoing reasons, as well as those stated in Defendant’s motion to dismiss, the Court should dismiss all claims against Defendant.

    [NOTES]

    [ 1 ]  In Miami-Dade County School Board, the court had no occasion to decide that question because the plaintiffs lost even under the “standard . . . of their dreams”—“the standard that failed to attract a majority in the Pico case.” 557 F.3d at 1202 (citing Bd. of Educ., Island Trees Union Free Sch. Dist. No. 26 v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853, 872 (1982) (plurality op.)).
    [ 2 ]  See Leake v. Drinkard, 14 F.4th 1242, 1253 (11th Cir. 2021).
    [ 3 ]  Ark. Educ. Television Comm’n v. Forbes, 523 U.S. 666, 674 (1998).
    [ 4 ]  Id.
    [ 5 ]  Nat’l Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, 524 U.S. 569, 586 (1998).



                                                      Respectfully submitted,

                                                      ASHLEY MOODY
                                                        Attorney General
                                                      HENRY C. WHITAKER (FBN 1031175)
                                                        Solicitor General
                                                      /s/ Daniel W. Bell    
                                                      DANIEL W. BELL (FBN 1008587)
                                                        Chief Deputy Solicitor General
                                                      DAVID M. COSTELLO (FBN 1004952)
                                                        Deputy Solicitor General

                                                      Counsel for Amicus Curiae the State of Florida

    Office of the Attorney General
    The Capitol, PL-01
    Tallahassee, Florida 32399-1050
    (850) 414-3300
    (850) 410-2672 (fax)
    daniel.bell@myfloridalegal.com


    CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

         On this 22nd day of August, 2023, a true and correct copy of the foregoing was filed with the Court’s CM/ECF system, which will provide service to all parties.

                                                      /s/ Daniel W. Bell      
                                                      Chief Deputy Solicitor General



    COMMENTS BY SAFELIBRARIES:

    Links to cases cited have been added by me for everyone's ease and understanding.

    SafeLibraries has written about Miami-Dade County School Board previously, and what a coincidence, another American Library Association "partner" in "Unite Against Book Bans" is back again to gaslight America—meanwhile, notice it's perfectly legal to keep political propaganda out of schools, Cuba then, the "transgender" lies now:
    And I love the way Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody used the American Library Association's greatest loss, US v. ALA, 539 US 194 (2003), where ALA spent over a million and a half dollars on a massive loss for ALA and ACLU, against the librarians yet again.  It's the gift that keeps on giving—to parents.  And notice how ALA just keeps plowing ahead with false information that harms school kids.

    Then she used the policies of the school itself to argue in favor of dismissal of the case.  Really, a devastating amicus curiae brief for those who want the school kids to keep reading pervasively vulgar and educationally unsuitable material.

    So all those books about pronouns and genders and trans rights?  All propaganda, all based on a fiction, also based on some people (especially ALA librarians themselves) trying to push things on kids in public schools using public funding to do so.  All illegal, despite state or federal laws requiring "diversity," "equity," and "inclusion."  All may be removed from public school libraries.  Immediately!  Buh bye!  The question is, will people continue to let ALA, NEA/AFT and ACLU bully them into allowing the harm to continue?


    Lastly, for those who don't yet know, much local opposition to efforts by parents to protect children from harm caused by school librarians and school libraries is in reality artificially created with the time and platform and money of the American Library Association itself.  See: