Texas School District Moves To Ban All Books Flagged For Review…Including The Bible

from it should be fine department

If you are unfamiliar with the history and story behind the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, then read it, because it is a beautiful story. For you lazy bums out there, I’ll sum it up this way. A 24-year-old from Oregon got fed up with religious types in Kansas trying to inject smart design education into public schools under the guise of “teaching debate” or “time equal” with, well, real science. As a result, he’s created a parody religion centered around a monster made of pasta that uses its noodle appendages to do all sorts of things in our world, including altering carbon dating results to mask the true age of the world and the universe. He then argued for “equal time” for this religion in Kansas, saying that if it was good enough for Christians, it was good enough for “Pastafarians”.

Why am I talking about it? Well, because it’s always interesting to see those who would inject their own personal beliefs into public educational institutions to have their arguments backfired in unexpected ways. As an example, we are going to a school district in Dallas-Fort Worth, which has just opened its doors after unsuccessfully agreeing on which books to ban, following challenges from parents and residents on many titles. Of course, the Texas Education Agency was also involved, which was also looking to ban books based on certain content. Not confident in its ability to examine these challenges in a way that would truly quell citizen outcry and with the government primarily seeking to ban books that discussed gender, sexuality or race, the district decided to simply pull everything books marked off the school shelves indefinitely. Books that included, well…

Dallas-Fort Worth Keller ISD Trustees announced tuesday that the district will remove all challenged books within its system – a sweeping action that includes the removal of all Bible variants and a graphic novel depicting the life of Anne Frank. The move is a seemingly abrupt reversal of course for the district, which has begun a high-profile, months-long review of disputed work at its schools following a Texas Education Agency investigation into allegations explicit sexual material found in its curriculum.

Taila Richman of the Dallas Morning News reports that an email sent to principals on Tuesday by Keller ISD program director Jennifer Price relayed a new directive urging staff to remove all titles. flagged for review at the end of the day, regardless of past recommendations made during the review process.

This is happening just as children are about to return to school in the district, apparently where they will walk into libraries with far fewer books on the shelves than they remember. And no Bibles either. Which makes a lot more sense than banning the Anne Frank graphic novel. Was anyone upset that Nazis existed and were depicted in a children’s book?

The Bible, in most of its iterations, has a lot to say about violence, sexuality, and all other issues of personal morality. Just like many other books, the community and the government have flagged them for removal. But somehow I doubt that those in favor of removing books on gender as a subject also want the Bible removed for the same reason. Call me crazy, but I think I’m on pretty solid ground here.

And so, in the interest of banning books they don’t like, it seems that a good number of religious people have had their own sacred text banned. And, to be clear: it sucks! It is a terrible thing that students cannot study a religious text in school, assuming the study is secular in nature.

But it also sucks that they can’t study gender issues, LGBTQ+ issues, etc. So, maybe we stop banning books now?

Filed Under: book ban, challenged books, culture, dallas, anne frank diary, libraries, the bible

Companies: keller isd