To the editor,
It is no surprise that our rivals are unwilling to share with the community the most offensive portions of the challenged books following their e-mail defending them.
While the Goldstein/Phillips campaign essentially believes that pornographic images are acceptable to present to children when they are in the right “context,” they want to keep parents in the dark because they know that for any responsible adult there is no acceptable context in which school employees should be furnishing obscene images to students.
We are now told by candidates Goldstein and Phillips that parents need to be quiet and take a back seat to the “professionals” when it comes to which sexually explicit materials are presented to our children. Yet when these professionals were putting the display together at Staples, they actually had no idea what was inside the books.
According to Tara McLaughlin, the mother in our community and attorney who initiated the book challenge: “The Staples librarians acknowledged during the challenge process, in the presence of the principal of Staples, that they never personally reviewed any of the ‘banned’ books prior to my challenge and were simply following directions set forth by the American Library Association (ALA). This point was acknowledged by Supt. Scarice in subsequent conversations with me.”
The fact that the decision-making around the book display was totally outsourced to the ALA reflects a disturbing pattern we have seen in our district. Outside groups that are perceived as domain experts but are essentially activist organizations, such as the NYU Metro Center, enter the picture and then proceed to exercise a damaging influence over our schools. While the ALA dates back to the 19th century, in April of 2022 the organization elected a self-described “Marxist” as its president. This organization now promotes its political agenda through divisive and contrived “banned book” displays.
Board of Ed members have the right and obligation to intervene when necessary. The current leadership of the board, and now incumbent candidates, responded to the concerns of Westport parents by calling an executive meeting where the public could not participate. They then refused to place the topic on the public agenda to suppress further discussion and hid behind a rarely used process in which an ideologically homogeneous committee was formed without any dissenting voices.
We cherish freedom of thought and free expression, but schools have an obligation to choose educationally and age-appropriate content. As board members, we will champion viewpoint diversity and foster an environment of intellectual and artistic freedom and exploration, but within appropriate boundaries. Just as hateful speech is disallowed, offensive sexual material is also unacceptable. We must insist on standards there as well.
Now more than ever, we as a school district and a community need to rely on our own judgment about what makes sense for our kids. We need Board of Ed members who will do their own homework, ask tough questions and think critically, just as we say we want to train our children to do. We do not need board members, such as our campaign rivals, who lazily nod, smile and heap endless praise on their own “experts.”
Jamie Fitzgerald and Camilo Riano
Republican candidates
Westport Board of Education
This stuff was debated for months, but because they didn’t like the decision they seem to think there wasn’t a debate.
Requests to ban books hit a 21-year high. See which titles were the most challenged
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/27/us/school-library-book-ban-increase-dg/index.html
Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Ban Books
https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/
Who’s Behind the Escalating Push to Ban Books? A New Report Has Answers
https://www.edweek.org/leadership/whos-behind-the-escalating-push-to-ban-books-a-new-report-has-answers/2022/09
Lee Goldstein misled the public, and she’ll never get my vote again: She told constituents the previous complainant withdrew their complaint, when in fact they moved out of town in protest. This school board has indeed banned books. Ask why To Kill A Mockingbird was banned, and they’ll tell you the lie that it was due to a “rape scene”. First, the SHS library is full of books with rape scenes. Second, any informed reader knows there is no rape scene in TKAM, only a false accusation in a court scene, delicately phrased as “taking advantage of…”. Meanwhile, it is a federal law that pornography shall not be made available to minors, and our school board has done just that, opening this town to litigation. Dozens of parents showed up to protest these offensive books. These are graphic books with scenes close-up images of oral sex, sex toys, masturbating while driving, excreting and period pads. The books are criticized by many for being anti-gay and anti-girl. It’s time the public knew the real controversy behind these books, and stopped believing the story that this is a matter of book-banning. No one in Westport wants to ban books. The majority want to ban porn from our school libraries, and Lee is all for it because she thinks it’s what dems are supposed to do these days. This dem disagrees.
Ugh.
I would appreciate it if Ms Fitzgerald and Mr Riano would state their positions on any proposed Long Lots School building plan that would cause the destruction of Westport Community Gardens and Long Lots Preserve.
Camilo and Jamie, I don’t think your “rivals” as you put it need to show you the graphics in order to see them. You could go to our own public library in town to see them – they look to be available – or you can order on Amazon from the best seller list. In fact, I’d be happy to order a copy of each of the 3 books and send them to Republican Town Committee HQ. I hope that you have read them yourselves since you have called them pornographic. I’d also like to understand from you both as candidates why the “graphic” books that you and Tara M. object to are all LGBTQ+. None of the “straight” books available in our high school library are explicit? Or is that sort of explicit ok? Also, as stated above do you have any positions other than anti-CRT, anti-LGBTQ, anti-book freedom, anti- DEI, anti- process, anti-elected officials and hired professionals. Are you pro anything? Voters want to know.