Showing posts with label New York Times. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York Times. Show all posts

Thursday, October 30, 2025

Some Media Smear Parents, Laud School Librarians Indoctrinating Kids

Some media smear parents, laud school librarians indoctrinating kids.  Mike Deak for Courier News, top right (photo credit), obviously took whatever a school librarian said as truth and made zero effort to search out the truth of what he was being told, in my opinion.  I'm certain many parents know exactly what I'm talking about.

So here is a response I wrote to Mike Deak and USA Today that needs to know how such "journalists" are damaging their brand by violating their ethics code.

I never got a response from either.

Mr. Deak


Greetings Mr. Deak,

I'm Dan Kleinman.  You just wrote a story about me and my businesses, that are not related to the ethics matter that I brought as an individual, that is partly false and possibly defamatory, neither is it journalistic.  

Further, your news story was photographed and posted on Bluesky by former North Hunterdon-Voorhees High School school librarian Martha Hickson who added a description to a photo (ALT text) calling me "Dan Klownman."  See:

Given your story's content, it appears to me to have been sourced from Martha Hickson, a person who harasses me on a near weekly basis and who disparages my businesses on a near monthly basis.  

Is there a means by which people can officially request corrections in the Courier News?  I'll provide you with some context and see if you voluntarily correct the story.

Here's the story: 
"BOE is Cleared of Ethics Charges Over Book Banning," by Mike Deak, Courier News, 1 October 2025, p.1, above the fold.

"Eight present and former members of the North Hunterdon-Voorhees Board of Education have been cleared of ethics charges that they were influenced by special interest groups in a controversy over whether a book should be removed from the North Hunterdon High School Library."

That is deceptive.  The book is really not the issue, only the underlying reason potential ethics violations were exposed, and those violations are the real issue.  This is accurate:

"Eight present and former members of the North Hunterdon-Voorhees Board of Education have been cleared of ethics charges that they were influenced by special interest groups in a controversy over whether they were guided by a special interest group in violation of ethics laws, made advanced promises to vote a certain way before being elected, another violation of the law, and leaked information to certain members of the public, a third violation of the law."

The following is defamatory, and it's how you describe me to your audience, as if written by Martha Hickson who regularly defames me and my businesses for at least a year:

"For more than a decade, Kleinman, based in Chatham, has waged a national campaign on what he believes are inappropriate books and websites in schools. He is also executive director of the World Library Association, an alternative to the American Library Association which he has called 'terrorist friendly, child unfriendly, and dishonest/unethical.'"

"Waged a national campaign"?  I am a parent responding to an approximately 60 year effort by a special interest group from Chicago, IL, American Library Association, to promote age inappropriate material to children.  See: 
Koganzon, Rita. “There Is No Such Thing as a Banned Book: Censorship, Authority, and the School Book Controversies of the 1970s.” American Political Thought 12, no. 1 (January 2023): 1–26. 

World Library Association has nothing to do with this case I filed individually.  Yet you introduce it by labeling it "an alternative to the American Library Association which he has called 'terrorist friendly, child unfriendly, and dishonest/unethical.'"  That's defamatory.  You definitely got that from the person defaming me and my businesses for years.  

WLA was formed two years ago, yet your quote is from 2011, fourteen years ago.  Further, had you yourself looked at the quote, you would have seen it was based on a New York Times story in which the patron privacy rights of one of the 9/11 terrorists who killed thousands of Americans were defending by ALA's "Office for Intellectual Freedom" and "Freedom to Read Foundation" leader Judith Krug after a Florida librarian turned in a terrorist's presence to the police. See: 

So it's an accurate statement to say ALA is terrorist friendly, and it is based on a New York Times story where the ALA leader defended the patron privacy rights of a 9/11 terrorist to use a public library computer to learn how to better kill more Americans.  Had you had that context and been a real journalist, I bet you would have excluded that smear of one of my businesses.

Similarly, I gave extensive primary sources proving the other assertions I made long ago that are now presented by you without context in a way that disparages my business.  Here are those sources, if they haven't aged out over time:

Contrast how you introduced me to your readers with how you introduced Martha Hickson: "Former school librarian Martha Hickson was given the American Library Association's 2022 Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity for her efforts to keep the books in the library."

Clear bias right there in your news story.  I supposedly waged a national campaign assumedly falsely calling the American Library Association is terrorist friendly, which it is, while Martha Hickson is an award winning librarian, which she got from ALA to promote how she harmed school children with age inappropriate material that may even violate NJ 2C:34-3 Obscenity for Persons Under 18--the very law the school board explicitly overrode to follow instead the advice of special interest group from Chicago, American Library Association.  

You didn't introduce me in a similar fashion.  You could have said, for example, that Ernest Istook, the author of the Children's Internet Protection Act, described me as a "trusted source" on the issue of how the American Library Association misleads communities about public library law.  See:

It's right at the top of my About Me page but you missed it because you wrote a hit piece, and that's not journalism.  See:

Part of how media manipulates the public is by not presenting information it should.  You have done that.  And it shows again you got your information from Martha Hickson, not from any actual effort at real journalism.  

Had you actually investigated the story, or even asked me for input, you would have known the attorney for the school board, Comegno Law Group, repeatedly violated NJ School Ethics Commission rules--even the Commission's attorney had to interrupt to advise that rules were being broken.  

And where did you miss this information that is entirely relevant to the story?  Right on the Commission's website, the minutes of the August 19, 2025, meeting. A journalist would have made that part of his story.  Instead, I see only a megaphoning of the defamatory statements of Martha Hickson who then implicitly bragged about her getting you to write that story on her Bluesky account by posting it and using it as a platform to again call me Klownman.  Here is the link proving the above directly from the NJ SEC site that you completely missed because you wrote a hit piece, not something journalistic:

And that violation of rules may have been a violation of the NJ Rules of Professional Ethics and it may have been the reason why the Commission decided as it did.  But any potential of that is completely absent from your reporting.

You also missed that one of the Commission's members, Rich Tomko, was hired by the school's superintendent to consult on the Strategic Plan.

As I said earlier, part of how media manipulates the public is by not presenting information it should.

Mike Deak, I'm sure you'll be writing about me again.  I'm forgiving.  Next time pick up a phone and speak with me before blindly publishing agitprop from an American Library Association librarian.  

It might be relevant, for example, that ALA helped Martha Hickson so completely pull the wool over everyone's eyes, so much so that the ALA President bragged about it in her yearly speech to ALA membership about how ALA tools provided to Martha Hickson helped her keep the 2C:34-3 book in the school library.  See:
"ALA Details How It Controls Communities Nationwide: The Quiet Part Out Loud Now In Transcript Form"

(35:07):
And so we know that people are battling back and we are using that platform to pull people together. I was at a a conference and uh Martha Hickson was there who some of you may know as school librarian in New Jersey. And when she faced a challenge at her school through that UABB platform, and other forms of organizing, 400 community members came and joined her to sign, to to stand with her in that moment. [00:35:30] So the United Against Book baba Bans platform facilitates that. Our state chapters are using uh OneClickPolitics®, a tool that comes from our Chapter Relations Office and from uh the Washington Office to organize locally. We know that local organizing is what wins the day, that ALA can't come in and save places, but what we can do is provide the tools to the people who are on the ground doing that kind of organizing work. We continue to look for ways to expand our work in uh the Office of Intellectual Freedom.

"Mike Deak has worked in Central Jersey journalism for more than four decades.  Our journalists adhere to the USA TODAY NETWORK Principles of Ethical Conduct For Newsrooms."  See:


Not this time.  You violated a lot of those ethics rules.  Read them:

You violated ethics rules, to support a school board potentially improperly cleared of violating ethics rules.  All to keep school children reading inappropriate material that may violate New Jersey obscenity law but doesn't violate American Library Association standards or lack thereof.

All of the above is my opinion.

------------
Dan Kleinman, Owner of SafeLibraries® brand library educational services

By the Way


By the way, since writing the above, I have learned the NJ School Ethics Commission may have some ethics problems of its own.  We shall see.  

In the meantime, one of the board members formerly under ethical review (Beth Kotran) is running to be reelected by lying about the ethics decision.  I discuss just this at the 28 October 2025 board meeting, seen here:

 
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Location: 1445 NJ-31, Annandale, NJ 08801, USA

Monday, December 12, 2022

New York Times: Librarians Losing Child Sexualization War Against Parents; Librarians Want Out

The New York Times has printed that librarians are losing the child sexualization war against school parents, even as they win some battles, and librarians want out:
This is the story of what happened when parents in one town in New Jersey tried to remove a handful of books that they said were explicit and sexually inappropriate — and the battle that ensued. 
.... 
Michael Barbaro
So these forces of parental rights and proposed book bans, they’re clearly ascendant. They’re on the march. They won school board races across the country and are feeling, it seems, pretty emboldened.

And Alexandra, that makes me wonder about the strategy of those like Martha who fought so hard to defend these books in a place like Annandale.

I mean, Martha, in the end, had a total victory in her battle to keep those five books on the shelf. But in retrospect, it looks like in the process, she may have, in a sense, lost the bigger war because that victory helped fuel the successful candidacy of someone like Caroline, which will give Caroline pretty big and lasting power over which books are on the shelf.

I mean, just to simplify this question — did winning some of these book ban battles end up costing people like Martha the bigger war over control of school boards?

Alexandra Alter
I mean, that’s a really interesting question that I think a lot of people are asking right now. If the school board had voted differently and they had removed a couple of those books, would it have taken some of the fuel out of the fire? And maybe people wouldn’t have been as motivated to run for school board seats themselves?

That’s entirely possible. It seems like in a lot of districts where members of the Parental Rights Movement are running for school board and winning, it’s because, precisely like you said, they feel like they’ve been ignored and unheard.

Michael Barbaro
Mm-hmm.

Alexandra Alter
And they’ve lost some of these battles over individual books. And now what they’re trying to do is change the entire policy, not just get a few titles off the shelves —

Michael Barbaro
Right.

Alexandra Alter
— but pass new rules about how you can decide what goes in the library in the first place, and taking, you know, a professional librarian like Martha kind out of the equation, or taking some of the control back from the professional educators and librarians, and putting it in the hands of the school board or sometimes the community.

Notice also American Library Association policy adherence makes librarians feel terrible about their jobs:

Alexandra Alter
And in the course of our reporting, we’ve talked to librarians all over the country. And a lot of them say the same thing, that librarians are really exhausted, and scared, and tired. And they don’t feel like this was what they signed up to do.

They’re finding themselves at the center of these ideological battles. And when people used to just complain about books and try to get books removed, now they’re complaining about the librarian and trying to get the librarian fired, or in some cases jailed because they’ve provided those books to children.

So it’s just become a really scary time for a lot of librarians. And Martha, like many other librarians, is pretty fed up with that.

As the school librarian Martha Hickson put it:

Martha Hickson
I turn 63 in two weeks, and retirement is within my grasp. And I’m just trying to crawl my way to that finish line. It’s not the way I want to be and it’s not where I want to be in my career.

I, up until a year ago, really, really loved my work. And it’s harder to love it now.


She's trying to "crawl her way to that finish line."  It's awful what librarians endure to enforce American Library Association policy.

The parent involved made clear exactly what American Library Association policy promotes, namely grooming; school librarians are beginning to tire of defending this sexualization of children by some organization from Chicago, Illinois:

Caroline Licwinko
By providing material that is inappropriate to a minor and breaking down the natural walls that children are supposed to have to keep them safe, that is grooming.

When there’s a library book that is talking about, hopefully, adults at sex parties, or setting up Grindr accounts to meet someone just for sexual reasons, that’s only, that’s not natural. That’s not natural for a 14-year-old to be looking at in school.

And providing this type of information, that is absolutely one of the top ways that people who abuse, sexually abuse, children, that is how they break into a child’s naturally protective sphere.


Here is my published response to that story:

Dan Kleinman
Such books may be removed from the school immediately per US Supreme Court. There's no need for a review committee that's just an American Library Association tool to drag out book removal or make it impossible, as happened here.

Board of Education v. Pico says pervasively vulgar books may be removed from school forthwith. The books in question are pervasively vulgar. That is the basis for the removals, not the ideas they contain that the removal of which Pico would not allow.

United States v. American Library Association says, "There are substantial Government interests at stake here: The interest in protecting young library users from material inappropriate for minors is legitimate, and even compelling, as all Members of the Court appear to agree."

In contrast to SCOTUS twice saying material inappropriate for minors may be removed immediately, American Library Association says no material whatsoever may be removed since that would be age discrimination and that would violate the Library Bill of Rights. If you can't remove a book guiding children to take pictures and post them on Grindr for illegal sex (due to their age), then anything goes.

Between Chicago, IL, based ALA and US Constitution based SCOTUS, I choose SCOTUS. The books should have been removed per Pico.

The school board will eventually change from ALA anything-goes worshippers to those who respect the law. At that point the books will be removed, and legally so.


Lastly, American Library Association knows it is losing this war to sexualize children.  Notice ALA has not promoted this New York Times story via any of its many media outlets.  ALA makes a habit of staying silent about what it sees as bad news for ALA.  And it's silent about this story and parent Caroline Licwinko getting elected to the school board and the school board successes of Moms For Liberty —because getting on the school boards is the means to erase ALA's harmful policies.  ALA is silent about this.  This is how you know ALA knows it's losing its war to sexualize school children.

This is the way, parents.  Directly expose how school librarians following ALA diktat are sexualizing children, then run for and win positions on school boards.  Demoralized librarians will jump on ALA's sword then run for the exits instead of doing what's right to protect children.  "And I’m just trying to crawl my way to that finish line," said Martha Hickson.

By the way, notice the story mentions a lot how the books are not obscene or standards are applied that apply only in the case of obscenity.  Example:

Alexandra Alter
And also, in order to meet the definition of obscenity or pornography, the works in question are supposed to be totally devoid of any artistic, or educational, or political, or scientific value. 
So most people, when they looked at a novel like “Lawn Boy,” for example, would say there’s a story being told. There is an artistic purpose. There is an explicit sexual scene. But it’s not the bulk of the narrative. And there’s a lot else going on.

But the legal question is just one piece of what’s animating Caroline.

Obscenity is not the issue with respect to school books.  This is why American Library Association promotes claims of obscenity so heavily (and why media parrots such claims), because they already know such claims are a loser for parents.  So, parents, be careful not to be misled by media, as well as by the school librarians, the issue is pervasively vulgar materials in schools, not obscenity that's nearly impossible to prove.  

Some schools write policies having latent obscenity poison pills so the policy looks good to parents but that obscenity standard doesn't apply so is used to sink any parental challenge while you think the policy is protecting children.  Here's a school policy from Texas, for example, where provision 7 is the poison pill killing 5 and 6:



Tenure!  Notice how tenure protects librarians who sexualize children—why is that and what does that mean?  Are there no ethics codes that apply to school librarians?  So take action as soon as possible to remove any groomers:

Martha Hickson
Knowing the practicalities and realities of the world of education, I expect that they will hire a baby librarian, probably as young as they can and as cheap as they can.

That person will then have four years in which they will not be tenured. And tenure has been a great protection in this situation. So for those four years, that individual will be at a great, great disadvantage.

Sources:



Kleinman, Dan. “Comment to When Book Bans Came to Small-Town New Jersey.” The New York Times, December 8, 2022, sec. Podcasts. https://nyti.ms/3hf6Q6x#permid=121900687.  Archive: https://archive.ph/e7wwz


Related:




Gregory, Jamie and American Library Association. “Martha Hickson, Students, and School Board Save 5 Challenged Titles.” Intellectual Freedom Blog (blog), February 24, 2022. https://www.oif.ala.org/oif/martha-hickson-students-and-school-board-save-5-challenged-titles/.  Archive: https://archive.ph/gMiU3



Kleinman, Dan. “Court Rules Gender Queer Obscene; Parents Forced By Schools to Seek Judicial Relief.” SafeLibraries® (blog), May 22, 2022. https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2022/05/court-rules-gender-queer-obscene.html.

Kleinman, Dan. “Library Bill of Rights Means ‘Nothing’: Berry v. Yosemite Community College District.” SafeLibraries® (blog), August 30, 2019. https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2019/08/library-bill-of-rights-means-nothing.html.



NOTE ADDED 9 NOVEMBER 2025:

Some archive URLs added for convenience.

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