(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Educators at Palisades High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, called it “Right to Read Day”—a contest where students were encouraged last month to “fight back against censorship” by reading and making videos about frequently banned books.
But many of the books promoted in this contest were laden with pornography, including graphic rape scenes, pedophilia and anal sex between minors.
Headline USA learned this from Wendy Hawley, a concerned parent of a student at Palisades; and Brooke Weiss, a substitute teacher at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and the head of North Carolina local chapter of the non-profit organization Moms for Liberty.
“When I saw this come out, where it’s literally a school-wide initiative … What kind of message is that sending the kids?” Hawley said.
While not all the books available in the “Right to Read Day” were pornographic, many of the ones specifically promoted by Palisades faculty were, according to Hawley and Weiss, who provided screenshots and other internal records of the pornography promotion.
Indeed, one of the books promoted by Palisades librarian Meghan Sanford on social media was All the Boys Aren’t Blue, which contains the following passage: “I remember the condom was able and flavored like cotton candy. I put some lube on it and got him up on his hands and knees, and I began to slide into him from behind. I tried not to force it because I imagined that it would be painful … I eased in, slowly, until I heard him moan.
“He got up on top and slowly inserted himself into me. It was the worst pain I think I had ever felt in my life. He added more lube and tried again.”
Another book promoted in the contest, Flamer, includes lines such as “Hey Navarro, suck any good dicks lately?” and, “We are each busting a load into this bottle you don’t cum you have to drink it!”
Yet another promoted book was The Bluest Eyes, which contains a gruesome scene where a father rapes his daughter.
“He wanted to fuck her—tenderly. But the tenderness would not hold. The tightness of her vagina was more than he could bear,” the book states, before going into even more graphic detail.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Interim Superintendent Crystal Hill didn’t respond to an email query about the matter, but Hawley informed Headline USA that the “Right to Read Day” was cancelled last month due to parental backlash.
But that’s not good enough for Weiss, who wants to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
Weiss said that when another pornographic book, Let’s Talk About It, was discovered at the Palisades library around February, superintendent Hill immediately removed it and promised a sweeping review of all books for similar material. That review apparently never happened, Weiss said.
The more recent “Right to Read Day” controversy angered Weiss further, as school faculty tried to justify the event by comparing the removal of pornography from schools to Nazi-style book-burning. Weiss, a Jewish woman, let the school staff know what she thought about that dubious comparison.
“As a Jewish woman I am quite shocked by this incredulous response. To equate demanding age-appropriate curricular and co-curricular literature in our public schools to the banning and burning of books by the Third Reich is at best an embarrassing misunderstanding of history for you, and most appropriately gross negligence,” she told school officials in an email, which she provided to Headline USA.
“At this point, CMS inattention to this matter equates to promoting the use of graphic, explicit, obscene material with minors. It is not a one-off, not something leadership is not aware—it is organized use of pornographic material with minors in our public schools.”
Weiss also said she resents the attacks being levied against her. She said her critics have accused her of trying to ban books.
To the contrary, Weiss said she simply wants a ratings system for the school, similar to how movies, video games and music are rated.
“I want them to decide through a committee at the district level, made of educators and parents, to decide which books should be slapped with a limited-access label, and for those books to be in a section where parents have to opt-in for the children to be able to access,” she said.
Luckily for Weiss, Hawley and other worried mothers, it looks like Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is listening to their concerns. Shortly before this article’s publication, Weiss informed Headline USA that superintendent Hill plans on implementing a review system, and has invited her to participate in getting that process off the ground.
“This is a major win, and I am truly grateful to SI Crystal Hill and this opportunity,” Weiss said. “Based on her response in February to the controversy then, and her current response to the Palisades TikTok controversy, I do think she is trying to do the right thing.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
