Showing posts with label Dr James Lindsay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dr James Lindsay. Show all posts

Thursday, August 27, 2026

'Media Literacy' Is the Label; Freire Is What They Add; IMLS Funds It

When a librarian says a school is adopting media-literacy standards, most parents hear a narrow skill: can the child tell an ad from a news story, a rumor from a source, a deepfake from a camera?

That skill is real. It is not all they are buying.

Paulo Freire’s method—problem-posing instead of “banking” facts, a teacher-prepared “code,” student dialogue, consciousness of power and identity—is being added onto media literacy.1 You can see the add-on in three places that already touch real schools:

  1. AASL’s National School Library Standards—ALA’s school-library division does not stop at “evaluate a source.” It makes diversity a co-equal foundation and tells learners to judge information by social and cultural context.2
  2. Oklahoma’s information-literacy rule—the old code copied AASL by name; the 2024 rewrite dropped the caption but kept the student-generated topic and “relevant” question as the start of research.3
  3. Project Look Sharp’s librarian training—Constructivist Media Decoding. The flyer says media literacy. The journal articles name Paulo Freire.4

Faith Rogow, founding president of the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), is sending librarians to that training on Bluesky (pictured top right): Ithaca College, October 6–December 15, 2026, $190, 15 hours, letter to an administrator.5 The post says student-centered inquiry that builds media literacy and information literacy while supporting core content. It does not say Freire. The method papers do.

What Freire added, in plain English

Freire opposed the teacher who deposits facts. He wanted a code (a picture, a scene) that holds a contradiction in the learner’s world, then a dialogue that moves from “what do you see?” to “why is it this way?” The point was not better footnotes. It was political literacy—conscientização.1

He did not sit in the back while children wrote the syllabus. He chose the code and the questions. “Student-centered” meant the child talks. It did not mean the child sets the destination.

Media literacy, stripped down, asks: Who made this? What’s the purpose? What’s missing? Is it accurate?

Freirean decoding asks those questions and additionally treats the answer as a lesson about systems, identity, and who holds power. That second move is the add-on. Watch for it in the standards language, in the state rule, and in the PD, where PD means professional development—the training sessions, courses, and workshops to which districts send librarians and teachers.

1. AASL: media literacy plus Include, plus “social and cultural context”

AASL does not publish a separate book called “Media Literacy Standards” for every state to rubber-stamp. It publishes the 2018 National School Library Standards (second edition announced 2025; the six Shared Foundations stayed).2 AASL’s own Knowledge Quest piece, “Media Literacy & the AASL Standards,” says media literacy is interwoven throughout those frameworks—not a standalone skill.6

If media literacy were only source criticism, AASL could have stopped at Curate and Engage: pick sources, cite them, don’t steal, check accuracy.

It did not stop.

Include is a Shared Foundation on the same level as Inquire. Key commitment: “Demonstrate an understanding of and commitment to inclusiveness and respect for diversity in the learning community.” Learners are to take a “discerning stance toward points of view and opinions” in resources.7 That is already more than “is this article true?”

Engage tells learners to evaluate information for “accuracy, validity, social and cultural context, and appropriateness for need,” and to apply “information, technology, and media” ethically.8

“Social and cultural context” is the hinge. A parent can read it as: know the date, the country, the audience. A Freirean facilitator reads it as: whose identity does this text serve, whose does it harm, what system produced it?

AASL’s 2018 competency chart does not cite Freire. That matters. The official boxes came out of AASL research, older library-inquiry work (Information Power, the 2007 Standards for the 21st-Century Learner), and member process. Calling the pamphlet Pedagogy of the Oppressed is sloppy.

Calling the pamphlet larger than media literacy is accurate. Diversity is not an appendix. Evaluation includes social and cultural context by design. The 2025–26 second edition’s supporting text leans into “equity and culturally responsive practice.”9 The AASL companion book on Include tells librarians that living the standard means unlearning “false narratives” and names white supremacy, institutionalized racism, and “anti-cishet supremacy.”10 That is the profession’s own implementation layer, not a critic’s paraphrase.

So the AASL package parents are told is “library and media literacy” already contains more than source criticism:

Narrow media literacy What AASL adds
Who made this? Is it accurate? Include as a core foundation
Cite and don’t plagiarize Evaluate social and cultural context
Use technology ethically Learner “agency,” inquiry as identity-in-community
  Implementation texts that name supremacy systems

That add-on is what Freirean PD walks through the door.

2. Oklahoma: AASL on the books, then the same shape without the caption

Old OAC 210:15-3-173 did not hint. It cited AASL in the rule (pictured below):

Standard 1: Inquire, think critically, and gain knowledge. (American Association of School Librarians [AASL], STANDARDS FOR THE 21ST-CENTURY LEARNER)11

The 2007 AASL dispositions were copied into Oklahoma law. Two of them:

Display initiative and engagement by posing questions and investigating the answers beyond the collection of superficial facts.

Maintain a critical stance by questioning the validity and accuracy of all information.11

“Beyond superficial facts” is the tell. Media literacy can mean: get the facts right. That sentence tells the child the facts are not the point. Freire’s generative theme works the same way. A lesson still looks like research. The real assignment is the conversation the facts are supposed to generate.12

A photograph of that printed page is dated February 19, 2024—the same month the Oklahoma State Board approved the replacement standards.

Old OAC 210:15-3-173 cited AASL.


New OAC 210:15-3-173 (Oklahoma Register Vol. 42, Issue 1; effective September 26, 2024) is a rewrite.13 Oklahoma’s own 2024 Information Literacy PDF says so: an update to the 2007 standards “as currently found in” this code section.14 The AASL name is gone. So are “intellectual freedom” and “divergent perspectives” from the old block. Grade bands and five process labels take their place: Read & Grow, Question & Plan, Research & Explore, Collect & Organize, Share & Reflect. The new text adds misinformation and ethical use of generative AI. Those are media-literacy items.

What did not go away is the Freire-shaped opening move: the topic is not simply assigned.

Grades PK–2, Question & Plan:

  • With guidance, discuss reasons and ways to locate information.
  • Brainstorm and choose a topic.
  • With guidance, generate and discuss possible research questions.13

Grades 3–5: explain why a research topic or problem is “important or relevant”; choose which parts will be researched.

Grades 6–8: open-ended questions about a “relevant topic or problem.”

Grades 9–12: compose effective questions about a topic or problem.

“Brainstorm and choose a topic” is ordinary elementary research language. It is not a secret Freire statute. It is a rule that starts inquiry from the child’s choice and the adult’s “guidance,” not from a closed prompt. That is the form Freire used and the form Constructivist Media Decoding uses. Fill it with “how does a newspaper check a quote” and you have media literacy. Fill it with a Look Sharp identity or climate-justice kit and you have the add-on.

The new high-school band also tells students to identify, analyze, and counter misinformation, and to employ ethical generative AI.13 Countering misinformation is a content fight, not only a sourcing skill. Who defines the “mis-” is the whole argument. A Freire-trained facilitator will not treat that as neutral.

Oklahoma therefore shows the pipeline in one state:

  • Then: AASL 2007 text, including “beyond superficial facts,” enacted as law.
  • Now: AASL caption removed; student-generated “relevant” topics kept; media-literacy words (misinformation, AI) added on top of that inquiry form.

3. Project Look Sharp: the intensive course that names Freire

This is the piece that does not require a close reading of standards-committee minutes. The trainers published it.

Constructivist Media Decoding is a 10-week hybrid course for K–12 librarians and teachers. Live Zoom open and close (October 6 and December 15, 2026, 7:00–8:30 p.m. EST), four modules of self-paced work, optional coaching by Chris Sperry. Hosts: Sperry and Cyndy Scheibe.15 Rogow has been inside the project since before it had a name. She evaluated the librarian pilots. She is promoting the 2026 national section.

Project Look Sharp's Constructivist Media Decoding brochure.

What they say in journals, not on Bluesky:

  • Rogow et al., Journal of Media Literacy Education 17(2) (2025), on the elementary librarian pilot: CMD draws from Paulo Freire’s pedagogy (1985) and Len Masterman; the teacher does not “fill them up with knowledge.”4
  • Sezgin Büyükalaca, Sperry & Scheibe, same issue: CMD was built against the instruction Freire called the banking method.16

Same skeleton as Freire’s culture circle: hold up a document (the code), question it, let the group construct meaning, treat interpretation as shaped by identity and experience.

What they add beyond “who produced this clip?”:

  • Staff page: Sox Sperry, lead lesson writer, keeps Look Sharp focused on social justice, identity and climate disruption.17
  • Flyer “Why CMD?”: integrates with SEL, DEI, PBL (project-based learning (sometimes problem-based learning): students work on an extended project or real-world problem instead of a short, teacher-led lesson); “reaches traditionally disenfranchised & marginalized students”; “shifts polarized thinking.”15
  • Lesson catalog: Media Construction of Social Justice, Media Construction of Global Warming, Black Lives Matter and Climate Change, identity units, “challenging topics.”18
  • ML3—Librarians as Leaders for Media Literacy—with AASL, NAMLE, and an IMLS planning grant: the librarian becomes the person who spreads the method through the building.19

Federal money. In FY 2023 the Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded Ithaca College / Project Look Sharp $149,748 under the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program, award RE-254855-OLS-23, to plan taking ML3 to all 50 states. AASL is named as partner; NAMLE as collaborator. IMLS’s public abstract says “media literacy” and “habits of inquiry.” Look Sharp’s posted proposal includes “a plan for implementing the CMD course online and in schools across the U.S.” and a subaward to AASL. So this is an example of a direct grant of federal money to ALA. During that planning period they say they ran hybrid CMD courses through state library associations and education departments. They later reported IMLS asked for a full implementation proposal. The government’s label is media-literacy training for librarians. The method named in the proposal is CMD—the method whose journal articles cite Freire.20

IMLS awarded Ithaca College / Project Look Sharp $149,748.

That federal planning grant sat on top of earlier private money: about $270,000 from the Booth Ferris Foundation (2021) to build ML3 in New York with the State School Library Systems Association. IMLS paid to nationalize a model a foundation had already paid to invent.20

Fifteen hours, a badge, a letter an administrator can file under “we trained staff in media literacy.” The journal citation file is Freire. The kit list is climate justice and identity. The standards crosswalk is AASL. Part of the scaling plan was on the federal ledger.

That is the add-on in operational form.

How the three pieces fit

Parents are told a single story: kids drown in phones; teach media literacy.

The documents say something longer:

AASL made “media literacy” a thread through a six-foundation library standard that already includes diversity and social-cultural evaluation.
Oklahoma put the 2007 AASL learner standards in the Administrative Code, then rewrote the code in 2024 so the AASL name dropped out while student-chosen “relevant” topics and an inquiry sequence stayed.
Look Sharp trains the librarian who will live in that sequence, cites Freire for the method, and stocks the codes (the clips and kits) with social-justice and identity themes.

Media literacy proper—authorship, purpose, accuracy, missing information—can be taught without that stack. The stack is how “media literacy standards” become a vehicle for Freire’s problem-posing classroom: the child speaks, the adult chose the code, the destination is not a bibliography.

Questions that keep the distinction honest

  • Does this lesson stop when the student can source and verify, or does it continue into who is oppressed by the message?
  • When PK–2 “brainstorms a topic,” who writes the next three questions?
  • Are Look Sharp / CMD / ML3 on the PD calendar? May the public read the kits?
  • In Oklahoma, is staff being trained off the 2007 AASL dispositions that are no longer the code?
  • When AASL Engage says “social and cultural context,” what does the rubric actually score?

If the answer to the first question is “it continues,” you are not looking at media literacy alone. You are looking at Freire’s method wearing a library-standards badge.

ALA's AASL National School Library Standards.
Freire’s method wearing a library-standards badge.


More evidence from the past

About three years ago I provided evidence of the above use of media literacy as political literacy. It comes directly from school librarians themselves saying it themselves on a podcast called School Librarians United. So listen and learn, and notice she came to an ALA school librarian conference specifically to get training on how to indoctrinate kids using political literacy. ALA has been teaching this for years:

 

Endnotes

  1. ↑ Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum, 1970/2000), on banking education, problem-posing, codification, and conscientização. The 1985 work cited by Look Sharp authors is Freire, The Politics of Education: Culture, Power, and Liberation (South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey, 1985).
  2. ↑ American Association of School Librarians, National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries (Chicago: ALA Editions, 2018), https://standards.aasl.org/. Second edition announced 2025; Shared Foundations unchanged.
  3. ↑ Compare prior Okla. Admin. Code § 210:15-3-173 (AASL 2007 text) with current § 210:15-3-173, as amended by Oklahoma Register, Vol. 42, Issue 1 (Sept. 16, 2024), effective Sept. 26, 2024, https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/oklahoma/OAC-210-15-3-173.
  4. ↑ Faith Rogow, Barbara Crossman, Michele Coolbeth, and Jennifer Balk, “Constructivist Media Decoding in Elementary School: Media Literacy Instruction Across a School Year,” Journal of Media Literacy Education 17, no. 2 (2025): 125–139 (CMD “drawing from Paulo Freire’s pedagogy (1985)”).
  5. ↑ Faith Rogow (@insightersed.bsky.social), Bluesky post promoting the Project Look Sharp national CMD course; course dates and price from Project Look Sharp, “Our PD Offerings,” https://www.projectlooksharp.org/our-offerings.php, and the October 6–December 15, 2026 course flyer (looksharp@ithaca.edu; inquiry deadline Sept. 29, 2026).
  6. ↑ Len Bryan, “Media Literacy & the AASL Standards,” Knowledge Quest 47, no. 1 (Sept./Oct. 2018): 39–44, https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1190637.
  7. ↑ AASL, Standards Framework for Learners, Shared Foundation II, Include (Think domain: discerning stance toward points of view), https://standards.aasl.org/framework/.
  8. ↑ AASL, Standards Framework for Learners, Shared Foundation VI, Engage (Think domain: evaluate information for accuracy, validity, social and cultural context, and appropriateness for need).
  9. ↑ AASL, “Evolving Standards for an Evolving Profession: Introducing the Second Edition of the National School Library Standards,” Knowledge Quest, Sept. 29, 2025, https://knowledgequest.aasl.org/evolving-standards-for-an-evolving-profession-introducing-the-second-edition-of-the-national-school-library-standards/.
  10. ↑ Sample from AASL Shared Foundations series on Include (ALA Editions), discussing unlearning “false narratives” and naming white supremacy, institutionalized racism, and anti-cishet supremacy as part of implementing Include, https://alastore.ala.org/sites/default/files/book_samples/9780838919170_sample.pdf.
  11. ↑ Okla. Admin. Code § 210:15-3-173 (text in force until the Sept. 26, 2024 amendment), “Standard 1: Inquire, think critically, and gain knowledge (American Association of School Librarians [AASL], STANDARDS FOR THE 21ST-CENTURY LEARNER).” The commercial page okrules.elaws.us/oac/210:15-3-173 is unstable. Use instead: neighboring OAC 210:15-3-172 (Oklahoma adopted AASL’s 2007 Standards for the 21st-Century Learner as the Information Literacy PASS); Justia Part 21 index, https://regulations.justia.com/states/oklahoma/title-210/chapter-15/subchapter-3/part-21/; the pre-2024 OSDE compilation of Title 210 Part 21, OSDE Title 210 Part 21 PDF; and the author’s February 19, 2024 photograph of the printed AASL-citing page. Current text only: Cornell LII § 210:15-3-173.
  12. ↑ For the generative-theme classroom sequence (ordinary lesson as vehicle for political dialogue), see James Lindsay, The Marxification of Education: Paulo Freire’s Critical Marxism and the Theft of Education (Orlando: New Discourses, 2022), and New Discourses, “The Theft of Education,” Nov. 9, 2022, https://newdiscourses.com/2022/11/the-theft-of-education/, crediting SEL expert Jennifer McWilliams. Cited here for the method description, not as evidence of AASL’s drafting history.  See video after Endnotes.
  13. ↑ Okla. Admin. Code § 210:15-3-173 (current), Grades PK–2 through 9–12, https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/oklahoma/OAC-210-15-3-173.
  14. ↑ Oklahoma State Department of Education, Oklahoma Academic Standards for Information Literacy (2024), stating the 2024 standards update the 2007 standards previously found in OAC 210:15-3-173, https://oklahoma.gov/content/dam/ok/en/osde/documents/resources/educators/OAS%20Information%20Literacy%202024.pdf.
  15. ↑ Project Look Sharp, National CMD Course flyer and “Our PD Offerings,” https://www.projectlooksharp.org/our-offerings.php.
  16. ↑ Ayşe Aslı Sezgin Büyükalaca, Chris Sperry, and Cyndy Scheibe, “Using Media as a Source in Lessons: Media Literacy Methodology and Constructivist Media Decoding,” Journal of Media Literacy Education 17, no. 2 (2025): 140–146 (CMD contrasted with Freire’s banking method).
  17. ↑ Project Look Sharp, staff biography for Sox Sperry (curriculum writer; focus on social justice, identity, and climate disruption), https://www.ithaca.edu/looksharp?action=about.
  18. ↑ Project Look Sharp lesson and kit lists, including Media Construction of Social Justice, Media Construction of Global Warming, and “Black Lives Matter and Climate Change: What’s the Connection?,” https://www.projectlooksharp.org/ and https://www.projectlooksharp.org/featured-topics.php.
  19. ↑ Project Look Sharp, “ML3: Librarians as Leaders for Media Literacy” (AASL, NAMLE, IMLS planning grant), https://www.projectlooksharp.org/?action=ml3.
  20. ↑ Institute of Museum and Library Services, award RE-254855-OLS-23, Ithaca College (Project Look Sharp), Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program, FY 2023, $149,748, https://www.imls.gov/grants/awarded/re-254855-ols-23. Full proposal as posted by IMLS: https://www.imls.gov/sites/default/files/project-proposals/re-254855-ols-23-full-proposal.pdf. Award record: https://www.highergov.com/grant/RE-254855-OLS-23/. Ithaca College announcement: https://www.ithaca.edu/news/expanding-media-literacy. Booth Ferris Foundation funding for the 2021–23 New York ML3 pilot (about $270,000) is described in The Ithacan, Nov. 13, 2023, https://theithacan.org/51337/news/project-look-sharp-uses-grant-to-expand-media-literacy-initiative-nationwide/, and on Look Sharp’s ML3 page. Look Sharp’s January 2025 ML3 newsletter describes the IMLS planning period and a requested implementation proposal: https://www.projectlooksharp.org/newsletters/ML3_national_2.pdf.

"The Theft of Education":



"ML3: Modern Media Literacy for K-12"; "Our goal is to shift culture":




NOTE ADDED 28 AUGUST 2026:

After this post went up, read the field’s own handbook next to it. Douglas Kellner and Jeff Share, The Critical Media Literacy Guide: Engaging Media and Transforming Education (Leiden: Brill/Sense, 2019), especially pages 11–17, shown below, treat Paulo Freire as a foundation of “critical media literacy,” not as an outside smear. They tie the method to Freire’s conscientização and to reading and writing “the word and the world.” The aim is not only whether a clip is accurate, but power, ideology, identity, and action. That is the add-on this post distinguishes from ordinary source criticism. 

Buy or borrow the book from Brill. For a short public statement of the same claim, see Jeff Share’s UCLA slides: critical media literacy is “a dialogical process for social and environmental justice that incorporates Paulo Freire’s (1970) notion of praxis.” (PDF) 

If a school board is told media literacy is only “spot the fake,” that is what the critical-media-literacy authors say they are adding.

It's even easy to see what they are adding, with Paulo Freire promoted like a religious deity:




Source: https://criticalmediaproject.org/conferences/?wvideo=rjjqfp1trn


Critical media literacy is a dialogical process
for social and environmental justice that
incorporates Paulo Freire's (1970) notion of
praxis, "reflection and action upon the world
in order to transform it" (p. 36).
Source:
https://media-and-learning.eu/files/2022/04/JeffShare_UCLA_220420.pdf



The Critical Media Literacy Guide: pp. 11-12


The Critical Media Literacy Guide: pp. 13-14


The Critical Media Literacy Guide: pp. 15-16


The Critical Media Literacy Guide: p. 17


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Monday, July 6, 2026

In the Matter of Ensuring Children's Safe Use of Screens and E-Rate-Funded Services; FCC WC Docket No. 26-133

Before the

Federal Communications Commission

Washington, D.C. 20554


In the Matter of

Ensuring Children’s Safe Use of Screens and E-Rate-Funded Services

Modernizing the E-Rate Program for Schools and Libraries

Establishing the Emergency Connectivity Fund to Close the Homework Gap

Promoting Fair and Open Competitive Bidding in the E-Rate Program


WC Docket No. 26-133

WC Docket No. 13-184

WC Docket No. 21-93

WC Docket No. 21-455


Comments of Dan Kleinman, SafeLibraries® brand library educational services


I respectfully submit these comments regarding the Commission’s top-to-bottom review of the E-Rate program. I am Dan Kleinman, owner of SafeLibraries® brand library educational services, that focuses on library policies, compliance with federal requirements such as the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), and transparency in the use of public funds. I previously filed detailed comments in WC Docket No. 13-184 (September 16, 2013) documenting concerns about E-Rate program integrity and CIPA compliance; those comments remain available at https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2013/09/FCC.html.


E-Rate Has Outlived Its Original Purpose


The E-Rate program was established under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, at a time when Internet access (often capitalized to reflect its novelty) was expensive, limited, and unavailable to most schools and libraries. The program successfully helped close that gap. Today, however, high-speed broadband is widely available at relatively low cost through competitive private markets, widespread home and mobile adoption, and other public and private initiatives. The dramatic change in circumstances is evident even in language: what was once a specialized "Internet" service is now ordinary "internet" infrastructure; even the capitalization has changed.


In this environment, a dedicated federal subsidy program for basic connectivity in schools and libraries is no longer necessary for most communities. Continuing the program at current levels risks subsidizing services the market now provides efficiently, potentially distorting competition and creating ongoing administrative costs without commensurate public benefit.


Program Integrity, CIPA Compliance, and the Role of the American Library Association


E-Rate funding has long been conditioned on compliance with CIPA, which requires libraries and schools to implement technology protection measures to block obscene material, child p*rnography, and material harmful to minors. Despite these requirements, significant compliance issues have persisted. My 2013 filing documented multiple examples of libraries receiving E-Rate funds while maintaining policies or practices that undermined CIPA protections—such as easily bypassed filters, patron self-unblocking systems, and ALA-influenced guidance that treated filtering as optional or constitutionally suspect. These practices effectively allowed federal funds to flow to institutions that did not fully meet the statutory conditions.


The American Library Association (ALA) has historically provided policy guidance and training to libraries that, in practice, facilitated non-compliance or minimized CIPA’s requirements. With connectivity costs largely covered by E-Rate, libraries have greater flexibility to direct local resources and staff time toward other priorities.


Current Advocacy and Use of Funds


The ALA is currently conducting a coordinated national campaign titled "Save Our E-Rate," that urges libraries, schools, and the public to file comments and contact Congress in support of preserving the program. While advocacy is legitimate, the campaign appears designed to maintain the existing funding stream and even characterizes FCC's current actions as "overreach." Critics reasonably question whether these funds indirectly support the ALA’s broader institutional priorities rather than strictly educational connectivity.


With E-Rate subsidizing infrastructure, libraries have been able to allocate resources to programs and collections that many parents and communities consider inappropriate for children. One prominent example is Drag Queen Story Hour events "sneakily" hosted in public libraries, as American Library Association itself details here: https://web.archive.org/web/20170612040326/https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intersections-glbt-book-month-dispatch-small-town-librarian. 


Dr. James Lindsay has analyzed these programs in detail in "Groomer Schools 4: Drag Queen Story Hour," available at https://newdiscourses.com/2022/06/groomer-schools-4-drag-queen-story-hour/, describing them as vehicles for introducing queer theory and gender ideology to young children under the guise of storytelling and inclusion. Many families view such events as ideological rather than educational. As Dr. Lindsay points out, that's the very purpose of such events. He cites to the writings of Lil Miss Hot Mess, "a performer and board member for Drag Queen Story Hour, and the author of the children’s book The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish (Running Press Kids, 2020)."  See "Drag Pedagogy: The Playful Practice of Queer Imagination in Early Childhood," in the journal Curriculum Inquiry here: https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.2020.1864621. "Through this programme, drag artists have channelled their penchant for playfully '"reading" each other to filth' [footnote omitted] into different forms of literacy, promoting storytelling as integral to queer and trans communities, as well as positioning queer and trans cultural forms as valuable components of early childhood education" "We’re reading books while we read each other’s looks, and we’re leaving a trail of glitter that won’t ever come out of the carpet."


Similarly, initiatives such as "Books Unbanned" (promoted in alignment with ALA principles) provide teens nationwide with digital access to books that local school boards and libraries have removed or restricted—often titles containing explicit s*xual content, profanity, or contested gender and s*xuality themes. While framed as defending intellectual freedom, these programs effectively create a national distribution channel that can bypass local community standards and parental oversight.


Recommendation


The E-Rate program has served its historic purpose. Given the maturity of the broadband market, persistent questions about program integrity and CIPA enforcement, and the diversion of attention and resources toward controversial, non-educational programming, I respectfully urge the Commission to phase out or substantially narrow E-Rate support for libraries. If any funding continues, it should be strictly limited to truly unserved or underserved areas, subject to rigorous independent auditing, verifiable CIPA compliance (with librarian-controlled filtering and transparent enforcement), and clear demonstration that funds support core educational objectives rather than subsidizing ideological or age-inappropriate content.


Thank you for the opportunity to comment and for the Commission’s attention to these important issues of child protection, fiscal responsibility, and program effectiveness.


Respectfully submitted,


Dan Kleinman

SafeLibraries® brand library educational services

@OccupyLibraries


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Monday, February 9, 2026

The Librarians Film is Agitprop to Produce Outrage So American Library Association Librarians Can Continue Harming Children

The Librarians film is agitprop intended to produce outrage about "censorship" and "book bans" among the general public so the American Library Association's school librarians may continue to ply schoolchildren with inappropriate material, as they have for 60 years.

Worse, the film is intended to be used as agitprop for years to come.  Agitprop means "agitation" and "propaganda," per Dr. James Lindsay, who also discusses "paltering," which is exactly what the ALA does—particularly in The Librarians.

I have already written about the film in The Hill, including its paltering by providing a half-quote of President Dwight D. Eisenhower to give an impression about inappropriate books in schools that is essentially opposite of what the full quote said.  Please read:

I will dissect the film as time goes on, so follow me here and @OccupyLibraries.  But in the meantime, let's look as how the film is agitprop—because Kim A. Snyder, the film's director, says it is:

[Amanda] Jones said that the film shows how librarians are banding together and bringing these stories to light.

"We've gone from being independent and isolated to what Kim has said, that we're like librarians without borders because we're building relationships with other librarians," Jones said.

Now, after screening the documentary in various places, the "librarians without borders" have started a movement. "The Librarians" team plans to continue this campaign throughout 2026. They hope to encourage civic engagement and take these book debates out of a polarized partisan space. 

The PBS broadcast premiere puts the documentary into homes all over the country. 

"The majority of Americans really care but had no idea things had gotten like this, specifically in terms of the impact on the librarian," Snyder said. "We want to expose that and have people be both outraged and activated to get civically engaged. We also want to support organizations of librarians as they are the firewall protecting one of the most fundamental rights in our democracy."

Source:  "Louisiana Librarian Who Fought Against Book Bans Will Be Featured on New PBS Documentary," by Joy Holden, The Advocate, February 6, 2026.

Kim Snyder is consistent with her message that The Librarians is agitprop designed to get people who support harming kids to get onto library and school boards:


So let's not all be taken in by an organization that has worked for over 60 years to eliminate parental rights and indoctrinate schoolchildren.

Lastly, listen to Dr. James Lindsay discussing agitprop and how paltering is used for that purpose—and remember to follow me for more on this agitprop called The Librarians as time goes on.

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Sunday, August 20, 2023

Emily Drabinski Threatens State Library Commissions After Montana Drops ALA Membership: 'There Are More of Us Than There Are of Them'

Emily Drabinski is the President of the American Library Association and, as a result, libraries and state library commissions are dropping their memberships so as to defund ALA.  There are lot of reasons why, but for this publication, I present below a transcript of Emily speaking on August 14, after the Montana State Library Commission has already canceled its $15,000 membership with more states about to follow.  Source:

Ferenc, Ed. “Fighting Against a Nationwide Attack on Libraries and Education: Interview of Emily Drabinski S4 E160.” America’s Work Force; Union Podcast, August 14, 2023. https://awf.labortools.com/listen/fighting-against-a-nationwide-attack-on-libraries-and-education. (Transcript below.)

Think about what she is saying.  Listen or read closely.  Everything she is saying is why people are dropping out of ALA.  Now I will discuss what's in the transcript provided below and why state library commissions should drop ALA membership immediately.

Overall, these statements by the President of the ALA reveal that ALA's top goal is equity—literacy is never mentioned.  Not even once.  And it shows.  Reading scores are crashing all across America, with black students having a 4th grade reading proficiency level of 17%.  Never mind literacy, Emily wants librarians to organize for change against communities she calls "a small but very loud minority."  Per Emily, librarians should spin challengers/parents/state library commissioners as being hateful, racist and homophobic, and she says ALA rarely gets involved locally when the opposite is true.  Most importantly, she threatens state library commissions, because this is how ALA works.  

So more state library commissions should drop out and drop out now using this new evidence.

Emily starts out by describing ALA as "an association that advances access and equity, uh, for all."  Equity means, per Dr. James Lindsay, "something pretty close to Marxism."  See picture of Emily Drabinski above right.

Emily then does projection.  She calls parents, "a sort of movement being led by a small but very loud minority of people."  That's a lie.  Parents are the vast majority, and the librarians who allow the s3xualization of children, those are the people who literally are the small but very loud minority.  So she's gaslighting.

And how does she describe these parents? As "people who want to restrict access to information about black life and experience, about queer life and experience."  So as racists and homophobes.  That's more lying.  It's simply not happening but claiming it is has been a decades-long tactic of the American Library Association because it works to fool people.  And black students having a 4th grade reading proficiency level of 17%, something not even on ALA's radar.

Here's more projection: "organized efforts to pull books off the shelves."  The reality is the s3xualization of children in libraries is an organized effort to push books onto school shelves, and ALA is organizing that effort.  And ALA's organization is so strong and well entrenched it goes right up to the White House, so it's projection to complain about Moms for Liberty and the like: "Library Boards Trained to Lie by ALA; Banned Books Wedge Issue Adopted by White House."

Here's comes the victim role: "the professional sort of nature of our work is part of what’s being attacked here."  Parents speaking up about their children being s3xualized by librarians is an "attack."  And ALA wants more funding for this?

Then she makes the parents look stupid: "So I think there’s also a real disconnect between the attacks that are happening and the daily work of the librarian who, in many case, of these cases doesn't even have the book on the shelf."

More outright lies: "The um part of the talking points that these, uh, loud, pro-censorship activists and organizers is that the American Library Association sets policies for individual libraries and we really don’t do that."  Go to any school's materials reconsideration form.  Compare it with ALA's model form.  They all ask essentially the same accusatory questions or are substantially similar and people don't even realize ALA essentially wrote the forms.  This is why newly formed World Library Association has an online reconsideration form, but I digress.  Further, ALA set the policy for librarians to ignore child p*rn viewers then deleted it but only after I personally challenged ALA on that very point.  So don't tell me "we really don't do that."  You really do.  And I'll prove it further below.

Now here's a joke: "We have, uh, professional standards and practices and recommendations."  First, librarianship is not a profession.  Second, they have no standards.  They train librarians to use personal devices to bypass open government laws.  They order librarians to delete and destroy public documents already requested via FOIA.  They plagiarize censorship maps for Banned Books Week.  They hire and rehire a homophobe to train for ALA then have her file two defamation suits against me in federal court where the settlement offer was that I delete my exposing ALA's own homophobia.  They add the word "age" to the Library Bill of Rights to s3xualize children.  They train librarians to lie about challenged books.  They defame an MLB player (Alfonso Soriano) on Wikipedia claiming he cheated on his wife, which is defamation per se.  They fake claims about LGBT discrimination on Banned Books Week just to promote themselves.  They make hundreds of anonymous edits on Wikipedia about Net Neutrality just to circumvent IRS tax laws.  They spend over $1.5M to keep Internet p*rnography in public libraries, allying with a man from the ACLU who possessed sadistic and masochistic child p*rnography and went to jail for seven years.  They write for SIECUS and Playboy.  They train librarians that they know material is s3xually inappropriate for minors but it is to be "reframed" as diversity and inclusion.  They give scholarships to nonwhite people and have conference break rooms for nonwhite people.  I could go on.  These people have zero standards, let alone professional standards.

More lies: "We have an Office of Intellectual Freedom uh that ... do[es]n’t set policy at individual libraries."  OIF makes personal appearances at libraries across America to help libraries defend their policies that are essentially copied from ALA model policies.  One library that defended the crime of child p*rnography for 2 1/2 years was given an "intellectual freedom" award on OIF's insistence.  Watch: "2014-8-18 Diane Jennings Admits Child Porn and LIES about Staff Action," by Megan Fox, YouTube, 11 November 2014.  This was the very incident, where the PR Director admitted on a radio station that the crime of child p*rnography had occurred, that ALA started training librarians not to speak with media except under very strict conditions that would guarantee mishaps like this would never again occur.  It's why ALA will never debate me or anyone.  So at that library that defended admitted child p*rn crimes, ALA OIF said:
So as to Emily's lie that OIF "do[es]n’t set policy at individual libraries."  Its leader admitted, reiterated actually, "I do want to reiterate that I work with libraries on developing policies on a regular basis."  So there you go, yet another Emily Drabinski lie so she can spin ALA as a harmless organization that's just there for moral support.

And I'm not even half way through the short interview she gave.  The provably false lying is simply nonstop.  Oh yes, the lies are repeated from one speaking engagement to the next.  Example, FYI:

Keynote 1- Emily Drabinski: Organizing for Change, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-umq7phyB54.

Then there's more gaslighting: "This is an issue that has been right on the, for the front line library worker front and center for the past couple of years and it’s been really really intense."  It's not getting more and more intense.  What it is is that librarians are pushing more and more s3xually inappropriate material reframed by ALA as diversity and inclusion, and more and more parents are waking up to that.  Are we supposed to stay silent?  Yet Emily casts it as the censors are getting bolder and censoring more, when reality is the librarians are getting bolder and s3xualizing more.

Here's the lie/joke of the century she tries to slip in like it's true: "And what, what we’re seeing is that when community members and people who believe in their public library use it, which is the vast majority of us, right...."  No, public library use is dropping and it was a trickle during the Covid lockdown years.  And certainly the "vast majority of us" do not use public libraries.  Further, many parents are now avoiding libraries precisely because ALA has s3xualized it.  Did you know ALA trained librarians to "sneakily" push Drag Queen Story Hour into libraries?  Meanwhile, ALA trains librarians to block actor Kirk Cameron and readings in public meeting rooms of his Brave Books series.  This women Emily just cannot stop the lies.

Truth finally!  "People organizing to ensure that the library board members represent people who care about the library and promote the library as a way of keeping people who want to ban books from taking over those kinds of positions."  She's saying her Unite Against Book Bans group is organizing to win board seats just to block out the locals running for the board.  So finally she tells the truth while revealing ALA is working to subvert communities.  Nice, huh?  Funding ALA is like funding your own destruction.

Oh yes, sinking the hook, she attacks the parents again, the vast majority, remember, that she belittles as a tiny minority: "it’s uh really inspiring that they haven’t, that the book banners and censors haven’t taken over the library."  Then the parents are called hateful: "And uh I'm not sure quite why, ha ha, it doesn’t garner the same clicks as hate does?"

Now comes the big lie.  The big lie is that the vast majority of Americans oppose censorship so keeping books from children is wrong.  It's a big lie because it's based on truth, people do oppose censorship.  This is America, after all.  But the vast majority also opposes s3xually inappropriate books in school, and that she doesn't mention, and that's a separate question from book banning generally.  Here's how she puts the big lie: "Uh, but I believe that we we the major vast majority of Americans agree that children should have access to books."  It's a lie to say that.  Yes, we all agree children should have access to books, just not explicit ones in school libraries—and even the United States Supreme Court agrees with that per the Pico case.

Then, in her coup de grâce for the state library commissions dropping out of ALA, she has a message, a threat actually, and here comes the reason every library commission should drop ALA now.  First, the interviewer asks: "as we know there's some states that are pretty vocal right now, what would that message be Emily?"  He's clearly referring to Montana and other states considering dropping out of ALA.  (Texas dropped out too but after this interview.)  Emily responds, "We're all in this together.  There are more of us than there are of them."  Emily responds with defiance, then with a threat to organize librarians against the state library commissions, "We're all in this together.  There are more of us than there are of them.  It’s just a matter of getting together and standing strong for what our communities need.  And there are lots and lots of ways to do that.  Everyone just needs to do something."  The community organizer is organizing against communities.  Her answer to a question about states dropping ALA membership is confrontational, that there are more librarians than there are state library commission members and parents who oppose how ALA harms communities and especially children.  It's a threat—from the President of the American Library Association.

There you go.  This is why state library commissions should drop ALA membership.  The ALA leader Emily is not there for literacy nor to serve the public, she's there to organize opposition against them.  Do not spend another dime on any group organizing against you and explicitly so.  

Drop all affiliation with ALA now.

T R A N S C R I P T

Ed "Flash Ferenc" (Program Host) [39:34]:
When we come back Emily Drabinski will be joining us. She head’s the American Library Association. We’ll talk about all the censorship and book banning going on in the United States of America. Back in a few.  

Program Host: [42:29]:
Let's go to New York City right now. Joining us on our live line is Emily Drabinski who is President of the American Library Association. She's here to talk about the book banning and censorship that's been going on in America in the past couple of years. There's always some of that going on but it's off the charts right now. Emily welcome to uh America's Work Force. Before we get into that maybe you could uh tell us a little bit about your background, your association with the American Library Association, what it's all about and what you do. Go ahead, let’s pick it up right there. 

Emily Drabinski:
Sure. I'm a librarian, and have been for more than twenty years and a member of the American Library Association for about that long. Uh, I’m involved with the organization uh as a volunteer and a member leader, and was elected President last year. And I’ll serve a term, uh, this year. I’m about six weeks into it and working hard on behalf of library workers across the country trying to raise awareness and, about the issues that library workers are facing every day on the job. 

Program Host:
Yeah you uh you have entered in a very difficult time in America, no doubt about that.

Emily Drabinski:
I sure have.

Program Host:
Uh let me ask you, now do all libraries belong to the American Library Association? Does it work that way? 

Emily Drabinski:
No, it is a member organization and you can join, right, but it isn’t mandatory and we aren’t a a governing body of any kind. We’re a an affiliation of members who, uh, come together to generate probla, solutions to the problems facing American libraries. Uh, some libraries are organizational institutional members, but the vast majority of us are, uh, working librarians who want to be a part of an association that advances access and equity, uh, for all. 

Program Host:
Yeah, we've done a couple of shows with uh some unions that are organizing at libraries, we did that during uh National Library Week which was back in April, so we're seeing a lot of that going on. And a lot of that's happening because of what's happening in libraries, and the pandemic, of course, changed everything too. Uh, but let let's talk about the the book banning and the censorship that's going on and I I read earlier in the show some of the data, the numbers here, which uh is the highest since you started compiling data on censorship in libraries, goods going back 20 years ago. So, um, what's going on here in in your opinion, this. Is it like local school boards that are being really vocal? Can you explain the dynamics of what we're dealing with right now? 

Emily Drabinski:
I think it's really important first to note that this is a, uh, a a sort of movement being led by a small but very loud minority of people who want to restrict access to information about black life and experience, about queer life and experience, and are targeting, um, materials based on those identities. These are, uh, organized efforts to pull books off the shelves that give access to the stories of many of our lives. And it’s happening everywhere and is coordinated and organized in a way that I think we haven’t seen before. Libraries have always deal with patrons who, community members who have suggestions about the kind of books we collect and concerns about some of the books on our shelves and that’s a very ordinary part of library work. What’s different right now is the highly organized nature of the attack, uh, which is something we haven't seen before.

Program Host:
So it it's not your choice, you go to the community to find what books belong in libraries there? Is that is that pretty clear? 

Emily Drabinski:
Well, so if I'm a librarian, right, I went to school and got a masters degree in library science and I, my, part of my job is to develop, uh, physical collections, other kinds of resources, electronic and digital resources, services and programming that, uh, can connect to the people in my community. And every library is different, and so the library in Brooklyn, New York, is different from the library in Boise, Idaho, where I grew up, but in both places the library is tightly linked to the needs of the community. I’ve spent most of my life in higher education and so my library always meets the needs of the students and faculty at the University where I'm working, so the professional sort of nature of our work is part of what’s being attacked here. Uh, in the case, there’s a case in Boundary County, northern Idaho, uh last year where the library director was, uh, sort of organized attack on her institution, looking for, uh, her to remove 300 titles that, uh, the sort of activists in that area had pulled together, and those 300 titles weren’t even books that she had on the shelves. She didn’t own them at all. So I think there’s also a real disconnect between the attacks that are happening and the daily work of the librarian who, in many case, of these cases doesn't even have the book on the shelf. 

Program Host:
Hmm. OK let's take that that that case, for example. When you are alerted to something going on, you mentioned Idaho your your home state, does the American Library Association kind of gather, go over there, counsel and try to um moderate the situation, does does it work that way, Emily? 

Emily Drabinski:
You know it doesn't work that way and I think there’s been a lot of confusion about that. The um part of the talking points that these, uh, loud, pro-censorship activists and organizers is that the American Library Association sets policies for individual libraries and we really don’t do that. We have, uh, professional standards and practices and recommendations and we assist in cases where our assistance is requested. We have an Office of Intellectual Freedom uh that works very hard on behalf of individual libraries uh when they, when their assistance is requested, doing things like providing talking points, uh, press training, sort of connecting people to the resources that we have inside the organization, uh, but we don’t set policy at individual libraries. 

Program Host:
I see.  

Emily Drabinski:
That’s a local concern.

Program Host:
Now, now you do have an action tool kit. In fact I downloaded it. It's pretty uh significant. You can get it if you Google American Library Association. Those of you listening right now, and we have a pretty broad audience, they can take part in this action tool kit which um. Well let's let's talk about that. So so this is, if if somebody is in a respective community and they're banning books or censoring books uh they can download this kit and fight back? Can you can kind of kind of walk us through the the process on that? I'm sure you’re getting a lot of feedback on this, uh, on this toolkit, right?  

Emily Drabinski:
We sure are. We've got a campaign right now called Unite Against Book Bans that includes, uh, tools for people, everything from uh yard signs that you can print out and have have printed and and put in your yard, uh, proclaiming that you oppose book banning and censorship in your community, talking points for talking with the media, uh, as a concerned citizen, guidelines for how to show up at a school board meeting, how to show up at a library board meeting, um, lots of tools like that that you can use, uh. Mostly we’re wanting everybody to get involved. This is an issue that has been right on the, for the front line library worker front and center for the past couple of years and it’s been really really intense. And what, what we’re seeing is that when community members and people who believe in their public library use it, which is the vast majority of us, right, uh, uh, toolkit also include statistics about public support for libraries and the pat, it’s a minority of people that want books out of the collection, and so we need the majority to show up and stand up. And the strategy is, right, for how we're going to win is, um, they’re they’re different and they change every day, and we never know in advance, right, and so we’re asking the toolkit there’s lots of ways for people to get involved. We’ve seen cases in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, where community members have banded together to support the librarian. Really really effective ways, uh, we’ve seen in, uh, Lincolnwood, uh, in the Chicago area, uh. People organizing to ensure that the library board members represent people who care about the library and promote the library as a way of keeping people who want to ban books from taking over those kinds of positions. And so the toolkit gives lots and lots of information about how you can do that organizing in your own community.

Program Host:
Well you point out it's a small but vocal group.

Emily Drabinski:
There is that.

Program Host:
And somehow they get they get national media attention, some networks more than others, I'm not gonna name names, I think you know who I’m talking about here. But uh the the pushback here. Now is that, you you mentioned some success stories. Is that garnering some media attention, the fact that, you know, citizens are saying, "hey, enough is enough, we don’t want this banning anymore." Is that happening? 

Emily Drabinski:
We’re seeing some of that, I wish we saw more of that. Ya know? There’s a lot of winning happening across the country. A lot of communities where uh the the push for censorship is failing, uh, that Lincolnwood example I just shared with you, it’s uh really inspiring that they haven’t, that the book banners and censors haven’t taken over the library, but they were, they were able to see that that might be coming and, uh, organize really effectively in advance, and it’s the kind of, um, win that’s a little harder to frame and celebrate? And uh I'm not sure quite why, ha ha, it doesn’t garner the same clicks as hate does? Uh, but I believe that we we the major vast majority of Americans agree that children should have access to books. It’s, uh, for someone who’s worked in libraries my whole career it’s been shocking to see people oppose things that it’s hard to imagine anyone being against. I was visiting a library in Rhode Island a few weeks ago, and you walk in the door and there's a a shelf there with little tiny plants on it and it’s painted and it says, "take a plant, leaf a plant," and it’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen and it's a community partnership between the branch library and the local Girl Scouts to provide greenery to the community. When you see something like that in the library and you don't understand how anyone could be against it and it doesn’t make any sense, and it, I think, um, that’s the piece that’s the most challenging for me. If we could amplify the stories of good work that libraries are doing every day that you probably know about from going to the library, I know about from going to libraries, those are the stories that I’d love to see getting more press coverage, cause that's the real work of uh America’s library workers. Connecting people.

Program Host:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well you got a friend here at America's Work Force. We appreciate what you're doing there. This is a really, really tough job and just in closing Emily, Emily Drabinski joining us, she is President of the American Library Association, your message to those communities that are affected, um, and and as we know there's some states that are pretty vocal right now, what would that message be Emily?

Emily Drabinski:
We're all in this together. There are more of us than there are of them. It’s just a matter of getting together and standing strong for what our communities need. And there are lots and lots of ways to do that. Everyone just needs to do something. 

Program Host:
There you go.

Emily Drabinski:
And we’re glad to have all of you in the fight.

Program Host:
Alright, Emily, please keep in touch with us. Emily Drabinski, President of American Library Association. Stay strong and stay safe, okay?

Emily Drabinski:
Thank you. 

Program Host:
That'll be it for another addition of America's Work Force. Tomorrow I’m gonna check in with the Ohio Federation of Teachers and the Insulators, that would be Local 45. Until then, all of you have a safe and wonderful day.

# # # 30 # # #


Source of transcript of Emily Drabinski interview:

Ferenc, Ed. “Fighting Against a Nationwide Attack on Libraries and Education: Interview of Emily Drabinski S4 E160.” America’s Work Force; Union Podcast, August 14, 2023. https://awf.labortools.com/listen/fighting-against-a-nationwide-attack-on-libraries-and-education.

Source of graphic of Emily Drabinski and Karl Marx, upper right:

Monger, Craig. “‘Marxist Lesbian’ American Library Association President Not Backing Down Despite Alabama, Other States Seeking Separation.” 1819 News, August 16, 2023. https://1819news.com/news/item/marxist-lesbian-american-library-association-president-not-backing-down-despite-alabama-other-states-seeking-separation.
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