OPINION: 'Lawmakers have used our schools as playgrounds to engage in performative politics long enough,' writes Star contributor Heather Mace.
Back in high school, did you ever read the classic dystopian novel “1984,” by George Orwell? How about Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Beloved”? Were you shaken by Elie Wiesel’s account of the Holocaust in “Night,” or charmed by Amy Tan’s cast of mothers and daughters in “The Joy Luck Club”? If so, consider yourselves lucky; in a few weeks, Arizona educators who teach these books could be convicted as felons.
For example, SB1700, proposed by Sen. Justine Wadsack, R-Tucson, would allow parents to ban books from a school if they personally found them to be “lewd or sexual in nature, to promote gender fluidity or gender pronouns or to groom children into normalizing pedophilia.” Certainly, it’s important for schools to consider families’ educational preferences, but the state government should not legislate that process. School districts already have policies in place to vet and approve library books. They also have established codes of conduct to regulate content presented to students. The public elects school boards to oversee these decisions, and parents have multiple avenues to share their feedback with administrators.
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