Time Sensitive this Thursday, June 6, 10 AM Room 16 State Assembly Education Committee.
Time Sensitive this Thursday, June 6, 10 AM Room 16 State Assembly Education Committee. The misnamed “Freedom to Read Act” S2421/A3446 is a violent assault on New Jersey school-age children in government schools. The proposed legislation erases local control over what children are taught in New Jersey’s nearly 593 operating school districts. This is not about the freedom to read, S2421/ A3446, which we call The Freedom to Groom Act, actually codifies the mental and emotional grooming of minor children into unscientific unsubstantiated alternative lifestyles and dangerous life-altering sexual behaviors. S2421 /A3446 promotes and makes accessible sexually graphic material that violates federal and state law and sexually mentally and physically exploits New Jersey’s school-aged children. This legislation exempts librarians from criminal prosecution by allowing them to promote and make available sexually explicit and harmful material to minors. This is a payment to a radical leftist group of organizations such as the American Library Association, Garden State Equality, GLSEN, and teacher unions to represent a minority faction of radicalized educators who supported the bill sponsors in their reelection campaigns. The alleged “Freedom to Read Act” has no academic value in preparing New Jersey students for the workplace. Vote NO on S2421/A3446.
The Freedom to “Groom” Act – When Uncle Sam and Big Brother Become Mom and Dad
By Rob Kovic, Esq.
A major issue in New Jersey, and all throughout the United States, is the inclusion of sexually explicit material in our schools as part of a woke “curriculum”, compliments of the Democratic Party and their liberal bedfellows. NJ’s liberal legislature has been doing everything possible to ensure that their goal of early-aged woke indoctrination and neutralizing parental rights happens as fast as possible. Most rational people who have ever reviewed the school curriculum material say that it is nothing but obscene. The U.S. Supreme Court would also seem to agree.
Our legislature is making or changing laws and sending out directives to make sure that what they are doing to our children and our families is “legal” and insulates school personnel and school boards from any criminal and civil penalties. Let’s take a look at what NJ is doing.
First, below is NJ’s obscenity statute in our criminal code, in part.
According to New Jersey Statute 2C:34-3 entitled Obscenity for Persons Under 18 the statute read as follows:
2C:34-3. Obscenity For Persons Under 18.
a. Definitions for purposes of this section:
(1) “Obscene material” means any description, narrative account, display, depiction of a specified anatomical area or specified sexual activity contained in, or consisting of, a picture or other representation, publication, sound recording, live performance or film, which by means of posing, composition, format or animated sensual details, emits sensuality with sufficient impact to concentrate prurient interest on the area or activity.
(2) “Obscene film” means any motion picture film or preview or trailer to a film, not including newsreels portraying actual current events or pictorial news of the day, in which a scene, taken by itself:
(a) Depicts a specified anatomical area or specified sexual activity, or the simulation of a specified sexual activity, or verbalization concerning a specified sexual activity; and
(b) Emits sensuality sufficient, in terms of the duration and impact of the depiction, to appeal to prurient interest.
(3) “Specified anatomical area” means:
(a) Less than completely and opaquely covered human genitals, pubic region, buttock or female breasts below a point immediately above the top of the areola; or
(b) Human male genitals in a discernibly turgid state, even if covered.
(4) “Specified sexual activity” means:
(a) Human genitals in a state of sexual stimulation or arousal; or
(b) Any act of human masturbation, sexual intercourse or deviate sexual intercourse; or
(c) Fondling or other erotic touching of covered or uncovered human genitals, pubic region, buttock or female breast.
(5) “Knowingly” means:
(a) Having knowledge of the character and content of the material or film described herein; or
(b) Having failed to exercise reasonable inspection which would disclose its character and content.
(6) “Exhibit” means the sale of admission to view obscene material.
(7) “Show” means cause or allow to be seen.
b. Promoting obscene material.
(1) A person who knowingly sells, distributes, rents or exhibits to a person under 18 years of age obscene material is guilty of a crime of the third degree.
(2) A person who knowingly shows obscene material to a person under 18 years of age with the knowledge or purpose to arouse, gratify or stimulate himself or another is guilty of a crime of the third degree if the person showing the obscene material is at least four years older than the person under 18 years of age viewing the material.
c. Admitting to exhibition of obscene film.
(1) Any person who knowingly admits a person under 18 years of age to a theatre then exhibiting an obscene film is guilty of a crime of the third degree.
(2) A person who knowingly shows an obscene film to a person under 18 years of age with the knowledge or purpose to arouse, gratify or stimulate himself or another is guilty of a crime of the third degree if the person showing the obscene film is at least four years older than the person under 18 years of age viewing the film.
d. Presumption of knowledge and age.
The requisite knowledge with regard to the character and content of the film or material and of the age of the person is presumed in the case of an actor who sells, distributes, rents, exhibits or shows obscene material to a person under 18 years of age or admits to a film obscene for a person under 18 years of age a person who is under 18 years of age.
According to this statute, teachers, school administrators, and/or school board members would be exposed to criminal liability for exposing our children to what we are now being told is “educational material”. Yet, at no public-school board meeting that I know of has any teacher, administrator, or board member explained to any parent the redeeming educational value of teaching children, many of which have not yet even reached puberty, the value of masturbation, shaving genitalia and anal intercourse as presented in many of these materials.
Now, NJ Senators Andrew Zwicker and Theresa Ruiz have introduced Senate Bill 2421 deceptively entitled the “Freedom to Read Act” to insulate their woke soldiers from legal ramifications for giving children access to these obscene materials.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that obscenity is a category of speech unprotected by the First Amendment. In the case of Miller vs. California, in I973, the Court reaffirmed that obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment and formulated a test for obscenity that continues to be used today. The Court said that the basic guidelines must be: (a) whether ‘the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interests; (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
According to Miller, in order for material to be obscene it must be patently offensive under the law prohibiting obscenity. The Court gave an example of this and said that a law could define this as: “(a) Patently offensive representations or depictions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated; (b) Patently offensive representations or descriptions of masturbation, excretory functions, and lewd exhibition of the genitals.
In Ward vs. Illinois, the Supreme Court held that the law did not need to provide an “exhaustive list of the sexual conduct” that would be patently offensive. The Court said that it was sufficient that a law included some of the examples included in the Miller case.
If our legislature was so sure about the “positive quality” of the obscene material being presented in our schools, why do they need to insulate teachers and administrators from legal liability? They argue that they “want to protect teachers, librarians, administrators from harassment of parents”. If these individuals are being genuinely “harassed”, they can file a complaint with local law enforcement. This Bill cannot protect anyone from being “harassed”. And again, parents are the enemy of the state.
Welcome home Uncle Sam and Big Brother… uh, I mean … mom and dad.
Freedom to Read Act” Is the Antithesis of Freedom. No Opposition Allowed.
By Karyn L. White, Esq.
Representatives in the New Jersey Senate and Assembly have recently proposed new legislation entitled the “Freedom to Read Act.” The Bill seeks to “establish requirements for library materials in public school libraries” and to protect school “library media specialists against harassment.”
However, what the Bill really does is completely remove local control of school libraries from locally elected Boards of Education. It strips away parents’ and community members’ constitutional right to express dissatisfaction with decisions made by those elected officials.
To begin, it is important to remember that “[n]o single tradition in public education is more deeply rooted than local control over the operation of schools.” Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717, 741-42 (1974). This highly cherished concept of “local control” in America can be traced to the classical liberal belief in individual autonomy and a healthy fear of government infringement. Local control maintains and stimulates the interests of parents and the community in the children’s education. Only local control can provide flexibility in educational programs to meet a particular community’s needs. Local control is necessary for experimentation and innovation.
While the NJ State Board of Education and the Commissioner of Education have supervisory authority, N.J.S.A. 18A:4-10 and 18A:4-22, much of the duty and authority to operate public schools has been delegated to local boards of education. N.J.S.A. 18A:10-1 and N.J.S.A. 18A:11-1.
This Bill significantly and substantially removes local control from New Jersey Boards of Education (“BOEs”).
Specifically, the Bill states boards of education “shall” adopt a policy on the curation of library materials. The Bill mandates “minimum” requirements, eight (8) specifically, that the policy must incorporate. However, the Bill’s use of language to identify the requirements to be a “minimum” is wholly disingenuous. The eight (8) different “requirements” listed in the Bill determine and fix the entire content of the mandated policy. The eight (8) different “requirements” are so exhaustive (and not minimal) that BOEs have no discretion whatsoever in drafting the ‘mandated’ policy.
Of particular concern are the “minimum requirements” numbered seven (7) and eight (8) in the Bill. Those two requirements mandate that the Board policy provide the school’s “library media specialist” with the sole authority to determine what materials are appropriate for the library and at what grades or ages these materials should be available.
The Bill goes even further and provides absolute legal immunity, civil and criminal, “from good faith actions” performed by the school’s “library media specialist” in determining “age or grade appropriate material.” For all intent and purposes, the Bill grants “library media specialists” protective class status (similar to race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, and disability) under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination.
The Bill takes control away from the local BOE and places all of the decisions regarding the “curation” of materials in the hands of the “library media specialist.” Even more outrageous, the “library media specialist” has no accountability. He or she makes decisions and is protected from all criticism or liability for those decisions.
On what basis is this reasonable or lawful?
This Bill also violates N.J.S.A. 2C:34-3, which defines obscenity for persons under eighteen as any depiction of a specified anatomical area or specified sexual activity. Violation of the statute is a crime. This Bill obliterates this statute’s prohibitions and allows “library media specialists” to decide what is obscene and what is not. If this Bill passes, a “library media specialist” in the name of “diversity” can curate library materials that show less than completely covered human genitals, pubic region, or buttocks, all in violation of N.J.S.A. 2C:34-3 and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
Deciding what library materials will be available to children should be decided within the parameters of the law as it is written. Equally important, it should be left to the local BOE, with parents and community members having input. Local BOEs and school administrators should be held accountable when the materials they choose are inappropriate or not sufficiently diverse. Parents and community members should not be stripped of their constitutional right to challenge the decisions of their local BOE or school administrators. Deeming such activity as “harassment” is a dangerous, slippery slope to eviscerating our constitutional right to free speech.
This Bill indefensibly removes this responsibility from local control and places it in the total control of the State. The Bill is a clear attempt to intimidate and stop any parent or community member who may disagree with the materials in the public school library from participating in the educational process. Once again, the State of New Jersey tells its citizens to be quiet and accept our values, morals, decisions, and judgment. The State is in charge of your local school. Just take it, and if you criticize or ‘harass’ anyone about it, you will be found liable for discrimination.
Each BOE must take seriously its responsibility to ensure that all diverse viewpoints are expressed in its library’s materials. Equally important is that all views on how and at what age some topics are presented should be included in the decision-making. Parents and community members who want to express dissatisfaction with the decisions made by their local BOE, school administrators, or even the school’s library media specialist have a constitutional right to do so. This Bill seeks to restrict and eliminate those rights to the detriment of our democracy and public school system.
Contact the NJ Senate and Assembly Education Committee members scheduled to discuss and review this Bill. Tell them you support local control of schools in New Jersey and the right to challenge elected officials. All members of the community deserve to have their voices heard. Urge them to withdraw this Bill!
Karyn L. White, Esq., is an attorney with the Pacific Justice Institute.