Hearing for ‘Parental Bill of Rights’ Derailed by Book-Banning Talk

A Senate education subcommittee discussed a proposed “parents’ bill of rights” Wednesday afternoon, but the conversation around it was quickly sidetracked by wild claims and statements in support of banning various books.

Senate Study Bill 3079 was proposed by Education Chair Republican Sen. Amy Sinclair (R-Allerton).

Sinclair said the main argument for why this bill is necessary is to codify the policies and procedures for transparency and parents’ access to school information that already exist for the most part.

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Conversation Derailed

Most of the conversation about the bill focused on banning books in schools, which is not the goal of the bill.

Nicole Hasso, an activist vying for the Republican nomination to run against Rep. Cindy Axne, spoke in support of the bill. She said her son goes to Johnston High School and she started paying attention to what he was reading when COVID happened. Hasso has previously stated that COVID was “the best thing that ever happened to our country” because it focused her attention on schools.

“To sit here and say that pornographic material is not being pushed in our schools is a complete lie,” she said. “And as a mom, and as a taxpayer, I should know what’s going on in my son’s school. My tax dollars are paying your salary. My tax dollar is paying for every book being purchased to go into every one of these schools.”

Hasso also said she should have a say in what her son is being taught.

“We are spending and wasting time discussing if they’re girls or boys, cats or dogs, or anything else you want to name under the sun,” she said, likely referring to some debunked far-right internet conspiracies meant to bully young students. “What happened to teaching our kids reading, writing, and arithmetic? We don’t even teach them how to do cursive anymore. We don’t even teach them how to read a regular clock.”

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Several other parents, two from Pella and associated with the group Protect My Innocence, thanked the Senate for introducing this bill and asked for a stricter definition for obscenity and for certain books not to be available for students at all.

Protect My Innocence is a group started last year in Pella to “protect” minors from conversations about gender identity and LGBTQ+ issues.

The members of that group specifically called out the book “Gender Queer,” which was the main target for book banning in the meeting.

One speaker, Anita Fischer, a member of Protect My Innocence, said, “As a concerned parent, I didn’t want my children, or any children, to be subjected to sexual pictures and/or any writing that could potentially destroy a minor’s innocence and well-being.”

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She also claimed that exposure to any information about sex harms minors. Fischer provided printouts of certain pages from “Gender Queer,” taken out of context, that discuss two adults having consensual sex. There are two panels that sort of depict it.

“We can all agree that we send our children to school for an education, education comes through reading materials, handouts, and visits to the library for information,” Fischer said. “There are several books currently in Iowa school libraries and public libraries that contain obscene material, available to children to check out without the parent’s consent.”

Fischer listed “Lawn Boy,” “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” “Hey, Kiddo,” “Hooper” and “Gender Queer.”

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The Definition of Obscenity

According to Iowa’s definition of obscenity, none of those books qualify.

That definition says, “any material depicting or describing the genitals, sex acts, masturbation, excretory functions or sadomasochistic abuse which the average person, taking the material as a whole and applying contemporary community standards with respect to what is suitable material for minors, would find appeals to the prurient interest and is patently offensive; and the material, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, scientific, political or artistic value.”

Which is why several of the speakers wanted the Senate to use a different definition for obscenity or to change the obscenity law.

Sonya Swan with Iowans for Informed Consent and Iowans for Freedom took issue with the last part of the definition, and why “obscene materials” are in schools at all.

“I would really love to see that part changed in the Iowa code because, from my perspective, children should not have access to obscene materials in a school period,” Swan said. “So they could still view them, and it could still be in the school via this new law, if it follows this, but they just can’t check it out. So that is my concern, that that material would still be in the schools.”

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Swan also suggested that administrators make the judgement that a book has literary value.

Sen. Herman Quirmbach (D-Ames), said no school has obscene material because there are laws to prevent that.

“Chapter 728 already makes it illegal to provide obscene material to children. Period. Full stop,” he said. “If you have obscene materials in your school libraries or anywhere else you already have the legal backing to proceed on that.”

“As far as the definition of obscene material is concerned, the definition code is really the end product of literally decades and decades of Supreme Court rulings,” he continued. “You wouldn’t want to change that in a way that could be overturned.”

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Sen. Jeff Taylor (R-Sioux Center) backed up what Quirmbach said about the obscenity definition, and that schools don’t have obscene materials.

“Not every book that I’ve seen mentioned in the media coming up as controversy at various school boards would be, in my opinion, obscene,” Taylor said. “A couple of the young adult novels I’ve read myself, I don’t consider either of those obscene.”

He did say he believed that the pages he’s seen from “Gender Queer” are obscene, but that attorneys likely wouldn’t take obscenity cases because of how rare they are.

And, considering that those are only a few pages out of hundreds, wouldn’t meet the “as a whole” standard because they aren’t what the book is about.

The Bill

Otherwise, Senate Study Bill 3079 basically lists parents and guardians of minor students have the rights to:

• know what a school is teaching,
• to access and review information about who’s teaching the student,
• to access and review information about the people who contract with or receive money from the board of directors,
• to reasonable access to the child while in school,
• to access and review of the student’s school records,
• access and review of information needed for accountability of the board of directors, and
• the right to information about the student’s safety at school.

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Sinclair’s bill also says students can’t be required to engage in anything, whether that be instruction, a test, or some other kind of assessment, that involves obscene material without a parent or guardian’s written consent beforehand. Students are also not allowed to access material or check out books with “obscene material” without the parent or guardian’s prior, written consent.

Some amendments were added to protect the confidentiality of students and staff, including information that would trigger mandatory reporting and conversation students have with counselors.

Nikoel Hytrek
2/2/22

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