Showing posts with label Trans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trans. 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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    Friday, August 8, 2025

    School Librarians Shape Young Minds with a Very Specific Worldview Leading to Tragedy

    I just returned from the library, and I can’t even begin to describe the emotions surging through me. It’s a storm — anger, despair, disappointment, sadness, outrage, frustration — all at once.

    I had gone there to pick up a book from the Simsbury High School summer reading list for English 10.1/10.2. My son had randomly selected a few titles, but most were already checked out, so I placed holds for us — and the first to become available was Someday by David Levithan.

    After checking it out, I glanced at the cover. The tagline struck me immediately:
    “Every day a new body. Every day a new life. Every day a new choice.”

    Curious — and admittedly uneasy — I looked further. The story is about a character named “A,” a genderless being who wakes up in a different person’s body each day. The author, David Levithan, is also known for books like Two Boys Kissing and Boy Meets Boy — stories centering on themes of identity, gender, and s[*]xuality.

    Something inside me recoiled. I asked my son to pick another book. I just couldn’t bring myself to let him read this — to me this looked like the intentional shaping of young minds with a very specific worldview. 

    I tried reading Someday myself. Ten pages in, I had to stop. Not because I don’t enjoy reading — I absolutely do — but because this felt more like ideological grooming than literature. To give it a fair chance, I even asked Grok AI for a breakdown of the book. It listed some supposed benefits, like encouraging readers to “reconsider assumptions about gender” by exploring life through different bodies — male, female, nonbinary, unspecified.

    But I can’t help but ask:
    Is this really what will help my son develop strong reading comprehension? Will this improve his analytical skills, prepare him for college, give him insight into history, philosophy, literature, geography or human nature?
    Or is it simply another nudge toward embracing a particular ideological agenda?

    Why do I, as a parent, have to screen every single recommended book from a well-regarded public school — a school we pay high taxes to support — just to make sure it’s even appropriate?

    When I was 15, I was an avid reader. I devoured books — Azerbaijani, Russian, American, European classics. No one had to check what I was reading, because our schools recommended works that built character, that inspired ambition, that taught us something enduring.
    I grew up on Dickens, Dumas, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Charlotte Brontë, Jack London, Jules Verne — stories of human strength, moral struggle, discovery, and growth.

    And now, in 2025, my son’s well-ranked Connecticut school recommends a book about a genderless being who lives in borrowed bodies.

    Walking out of the teen section on the second floor of the Simsbury Public Library, I looked around. I’d seen it before, but today it hit differently. The “teen safe space” was draped in rainbow and transgender flags. A woman sat nearby, clearly signaling affiliation with the LGBTQ+ community. Librarians wore name tags with preferred pronouns prominently displayed. Posters announced “LGBTQ+ Teen Night” — every first Thursday of the month, ages 13-18, with free snacks, games, crafts, and community.

    On the surface, it sounds innocent — welcoming, even. But something about it feels engineered, curated — like the goal isn’t connection but conversion. More and more, it seems that Simsbury High and Simsbury Public Library have become less about academic excellence and more about ideological celebration.

    Instead of aiming for the best education, they’re drenched in rainbow-colored narratives, pushing teens deeper into identity confusion under the banner of inclusion.

    And where does all this lead?

    Sometimes — tragically — it ends the way it did for Ilene.
    My daughter.
    Who followed this very path of identity exploration and affirmation — only to end her life in the end.

    Source of guest post:


    Reprinted with the permission of the author.

    Wow, Someday includes the "trans" main character k[*]lling people and enjoying it, then talking about dead bodies.  Can you believe that, given the tragedy that happened in the author's family?  Let me guess, librarians would say this is so "children can see themselves in the books on the shelves."
    Sometimes — tragically — it ends the way it did for Ilene.
    My daughter.
    Who followed this very path of identity exploration and affirmation — only to end her life in the end.
    I read the whole book. This book is the usual poor writing about political ideology and crushes, taking the place of good writing, like by "Dickens, Dumas, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Charlotte Brontë, Jack London, Jules Verne."  So kids are not only reading trash, but they aren't reading good books. It's a double negative.

    Or as David Levithan put it in the book, as if reviewing his own book, "sh[*]t, I said."  It's "fifteen minutes of f[*]ck up time."  "It's all so predictable."

    URL of this page: 

    Saturday, February 10, 2024

    What Librarians Learn: Marxism; Inclusive Cataloging and Reparative Approaches

    What do librarians learn?  Marxism.  For example, here's a book published and sold by American Library Association.  It's Marxism, only done by librarians working within government positions and funded by the government.  One more reason to defund ALA.  What needs to be repaired?  Capitalism and America.  See for yourself:

    Inclusive Cataloging: Histories, Context, and Reparative Approaches

    by Amber Billey, Elizabeth Nelson, Rebecca Uhl, ALA Core

    NOTE:  This title will be available Summer 2024. You may place an order and the item will be shipped when it becomes available. 

    Filling a gap in the literature, this volume provides librarians and catalogers with practical approaches to reparative cataloging as well as a broader understanding of the topic and its place in the technical services landscape.

    As part of the profession's ongoing EDISJ efforts to redress librarianship’s problematic past, practitioners from across the field are questioning long-held library authorities and standards. They’re undertaking a critical and rigorous re-examination of so-called “best” practices and the decisionmakers behind them, pointing out heretofore unscrutinized injustices within our library systems of organization and making concrete steps towards progressive change. This collection from Core records the efforts of some of the many librarians who are working to improve our systems and collections, in the process inspiring those who have yet to enact change by demonstrating that this work is scalable, possible, and necessary. From this book, readers will

    • gain an understanding of the theoretical underpinning for the actions that create our history and be challenged to reconsider their perspectives;
    • learn about the important role of the library catalog in real-world EDISJ initiatives through examples ranging from accessibility metadata and gendered information to inclusive comics cataloging and revising LC call numbers for Black people and Indigenous people;
    • discover more than a dozen case studies drawn from a variety of contexts including archives, academic and public libraries, and research institutions; and
    • see ways to incorporate these ideas into their own work, with a variety of sample policies, “how to” documents, and other helpful tools provided in the text.    

    Table of Contents


    Introduction

    Part I. History & Theory

    Chapter 1. Ways of Knowing: The Worlds Words Create / Amanda Belantara and Emily Drabinski

    Chapter 2. This Is the Work: A Short History of the Long Tradition of Inclusive Cataloging Critiquing and Action / Violet Fox and Tina Gross 

    Chapter 3. Describing Themselves: Diverse Library Cataloging, 1930-1970 / Sasha Frizzell

    Chapter 4. A (Very) Select History of Inclusive Cataloging / Karl Pettitt

    Chapter 5. Did Libraries “Change the Subject”? What Happened, What Didn’t and What’s Ahead / Jill E. Baron, Violet B. Fox and Tina Gross 

    Chapter 6. Accessibility Metadata and Library Catalogs: Current Outlook and Initiatives / Christopher Carr, Teressa Keenan, Chris Oliver

    Chapter 7. Gendered Information and the Program for Cooperative Cataloging / Matthew Haugen and Michael L. Stewart

    Chapter 8. From “Afrofuturist comics” to “Zombies in comics”: Inclusive Comics Cataloging from A to Z / Allison Bailund, Steven W. Holloway, Carole Sussman, Deborah Tomaras 

    Chapter 9. Critical Cataloging Beyond the Core / Brian M. Watson 

    Part II. Case Studies

    Chapter 10. Words Matter: Creating a Harmful Content Statement for Your Public Library / Rachel Newlin and Aaron Bock

    Chapter 11. Coming to Terms: Enacting Reparative Change in and Urban Public Library OPAC / Miriam Gloger and Amy Mikel

    Chapter 12. Enhancing Subject Access to LGBTQ+ Materials: It's Not Just About the (Rainbow) Crosswalk / Jawahir Javaid and Becker Parkhurst-Strout 

    Chapter 13. Access, Identity, and Context: Inclusive Cataloging in the Hayes Research Library at Perkins School for the Blind / Jennifer Arnott

    Chapter 14. Reparative Description for Collection-Level Archival Records: A Case Study / Allison McCormack

    Chapter 15. Reparative Cataloging as a Solo Librarian: a Special Library Case Study / Katie Yeo

    Chapter 16. Representing Gender-Diverse Creators in Indiana University Cook Music Library's Online Catalogs / Laikin Dantchenko

    Chapter 17. Promoting Inclusivity and Cultural Humility Through Cataloging: A Digitization Project / Elyse Fox, Lynn Sanborn and Pachia L. Vang

    Chapter 18. A Place to Think About Inclusive Cataloging / Bronwen Bitetti, Vic Panata and Sebastian Moya

    Chapter 19. Retrospective Cataloging Project for Respectful and Inclusive Metadata: Revising LC Call Numbers for Black People / Yuji Tosaka

    Chapter 20. The Trans* Collections Project: Conducting a Diversity Audit to Assess, Grow, and Make a Collection More Discoverable / Brittany O'Neill, David Comeaux, Marty Miller, Michael F. Russo, Zachary Tompkins

    Chapter 21. "It Isn't Part of Our Language": Engaging Indigenous Peoples to Facilitate Self-Naming in Subject Headings / Steven Folsom and Laura E. Daniels

    Chapter 22. Out of Many, One: A Unified Approach to Inclusive Description at Clemson University / Jessica L Serrao, James E. Cross, Scott M. Dutkiewicz, Charlotte Grubbs, William D. Hiott, and Shannon Willis 

    Chapter 23. Subject Heading Enhancement: A Reparative and Inclusive Practice at the University of Virginia Library / Jeremy Bartczak, Veronica Fu, and Carmelita Pickett

    Chapter 24. Canceling “Primitive”: A Subject Heading Revision Fifty Years in the Making / Jamie Carlstone 

    Chapter 25. One Step at a Time: Using Targeted Pilot Projects to Achieve Meaningful and Scalable Metadata Reparation / Savannah Lake, Joseph Nicholson and Jenn Brosek

    Chapter 26. Automating Inclusivity: A Case Study Detailing how to Automate Inclusive Cataloging in Alma / Rachel Turner, Maggie McGee, Brian Morse, Leslie Feldballe, and Maria Planansky

    Chapter 27. Inclusive Cataloging in an Academic Library Consortium / Allison Bailund, Anamika Megwalu, Julie Renee Moore, Yoko Okunishi and Israel Yanez

    Chapter 28. Reparative Cataloging at The Washington Research Library Consortium: Moving Ideas into Action in the Shared Environment / Matthew Bright, Yoko Ferguson, David Heilbrun and Jacqueline Saavedra

    About the Editors 


    Amber Billey

    Amber Billey is the Associate Director for Bibliographic Services at Bard College. Billey served as the Chair of the Leadership Team for the Core Metadata & Collection Section and Co-Chair of the Core Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She is a member of the PCC Advisory Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and was Chair of the PCC Ad Hoc Task Group on Gender in Name Authority Records. She serves on the Advisory Board for the Digital Transgender Archive, and the editorial board for the Homosaurus – a linked data thesaurus for the LGBTQ+ community.

    Elizabeth Nelson

    Elizabeth Nelson is the Cataloging and Collection Development Librarian and Library Department Chair at McHenry County College, where she has worked since 2008. Prior to working in academic libraries, she started her career in public libraries and then spent seven years in special libraries. She is also the current editor of Library Leadership & Management.

    Rebecca Uhl

    Rebecca Uhl has over 30 years’ experience as a catalog and authority control librarian at Arizona State University. Currently serving as the Principal on the Acquisitions and Metadata Services team, she has experience as a manager, supervisor and department head, in addition to copy and original cataloging in all formats.

    Core

    The former Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS), the Library Information Technology Association (LITA), and the Library Leadership and Management Association (LLAMA) are now Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures, a new division of ALA. Its mission is to cultivate and amplify the collective expertise of library workers in core functions through community building, advocacy, and learning.


    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: