Stuck on Porn, The Library Media Workgroup Decides to Move On.
On 10/11/22, The Florida Department of Education’s (FLDOE) Library Media Workgroup met for the third time. The Workgroup has been assigned the task of creating the online training program, mandated by 2022’s House Bill 1467. Beginning January 1, 2023, only school personnel who have completed the FLDOE developed training will be allowed to select/approve library materials. Charter and private school personnel are, of course, exempt.
The Workgroup is composed of 8 trained media specialists from districts around the state and 4 parents representatives, 3 of whom are either outspoken, book challenging members of Moms for Liberty (M4L) and/or closely associated with the Florida Citizens Alliance (FLCA), an organization that has been intimately involved with Florida’s “Book Banning bills” over the past several legislative sessions. In 2019, FLCA released a report entitled “Porn in Schools,” which listed books found in school libraries which they claimed violated Florida’s anti-pornography statutes [FS 847.001 (para3, 6,8 and 10) and FS 847.012 (para 3a 3b, para 5 and 6)]. The FLCA has been focused on ridding public schools of what they call “pornography” for quite some time. You can read more about the Workgroup members here.
During the previous workgroup meetings, the participants were unable to come to a consensus regarding what definitely identified a book as obscene or harmful to minors and, therefore, worthy of removal from school libraries. For example, M4L’s Ms. Pippin suggested that if any parent, grandparent or caregiver didn’t want their child to read a book then it should be considered harmful to minors. The media specialists appeared to disagree.
Amber Baumbach, the FLDOE’s Director of Library Media & Instructional Materials and staff assigned to the Library Media Workgroup, invited attorney Judy A. Bone, Deputy General Counsel for the FLDOE to attend the 10/11/22 meeting and explain f.s. 847.012 Harmful Materials (to minors) and f.s. 847.001, which defines “obscenity.”
It turns out (much to the disappointment of the M4L members Michelle Beavers and Jennifer Pippin) that being unable to read the “dirty parts” of a literary work out loud at a school board meeting is not enough to identify a book as obscene, dangerous or one which should be removed from school library shelves.
Ms. Bone explained that all materials for school libraries must meet 3 criterion:
- They must be free of pornography and free of materials that that are considered harmful to minors under f.s. 847.012
- They must be suited to student needs and ability to comprehend
- They must be appropriate for the grade and age level.
She then walked the group through f.s. 847.012.
Subsection 5 says “An adult may not knowingly distribute to a minor on school property, or post on school property, any material described in subsection (3).”
Subsection 3 describes those materials as “explicit and detailed verbal descriptions or narrative accounts of sexual excitement, or sexual conduct and that is harmful to minors.”
The three terms, sexual excitement, sexual conduct and harmful to minors, are specifically defined in statute (f.s. 847.001), as is the definition of “obscene”:
She explained that “harmful to minors” requires the material:
(a) Predominantly appeals to a prurient, shameful, or morbid interest;
(b) be patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable material or conduct for minors; and
(c) Taken as a whole, is without serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.
She said this was “a rather high bar” and explained that looking at individual passages will not help you reach the criterion for “harmful to minors under this statute because you must look at the material as a whole.”
Jennifer Pippin (M4L, Indian River County – IRC) said that “across the country and state” this has been a huge debate, she has read the statutes “in and out” and has discussed them at school board meetings in IRC and with the sheriff. She said “I think everyone’s opinion of what is “harmful to minors is different and it’s not clearly defined,” saying when you look at books and passages, “I might say this is acceptable for my child but someone else may not believe it is acceptable for their child, so how can you have a definition of being harmful to minors without it being clearly stated and what advice can you give us as a workgroup to be successful in making this recommendation to librarians and media center specialists?”
Ms. Bone recognized there was some subjectivity to the criterion, saying “When dealing with what is ‘patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole’ you are not looking at what you want for your child, you’re not looking at what the most delicate of us want or what the most (cool?) of us want, you are looking more broadly than that, you are looking at the adult community as a whole. I know that’s hard to quantify in a way. I think of it as the reasonable person, you’re not looking at either extreme.”
Ms. Pippin asks if being unable to say it at a school board meeting, or print it in the newspaper or say it on the radio, because it’s against community standards, would, therefore, be considered “harmful to minors.”
Ms. Bone reminds the group that choosing books for a school library goes well beyond what an individual parent would want for their child. Media specialists must choose materials for all grade levels and are required to pick materials for students who are advanced as well. She encourages the committee to stop focusing on this “porn and harmful to minors” because “quite frankly y’all those are crimes” and to start looking at the other standards dealing with “suited to student needs and ability to comprehend” as well as appropriate for the grade and age level.
Volusia’s media specialist Kristine Smith suggests that for this subject, the training should simply refer to the state statute and not try to further define it “because… unfortunately, I don’t think that this group’s going to be able to come up with a useful solution.” Both Ms. Bone and Ms. Baumbach agree – lay out the state state, explain the decision points (Taken as a whole, is there serious literary value? Does this predominantly appeal to a shameful or prurient interest? Is it patently offensive based on the prevailing standards as a whole?) and add some possible practices or ideas that individual districts might want to consider.
Sounds reasonable. But not to Brevard County M4L member Michelle Beavers who worries that this “sounds almost like anything goes.”
“I feel that we’re talking in circles a little bit because you have to look at some of these passages to see if it’s going to meet the idea of sexually exciting and all the other words we put in the statute. So I think you’re missing the point here, you can’t just say we have to look at the entire thing period so that there is literary value so that we cannot take anything out of the reach of kids that shouldn’t have it.”
Michelle Beavers 10/11/22
Ms. Bone says, no, the individual passage, if there is a narrative description or account of either sexual excitement or sexual conduct, is simply the starting point. In order to determine whether or not it qualifies as pornography or harmful to minors under the statute, you must look at those other three points which are: Does it predominantly appeal to a prurient interest or some sort of shameful and morbid interest? Is it patently offensive based upon the community standards as a whole as for minors? And, also, as a whole, does the book or material lack serious literary artistic value? She explains that looking at the passages is the start of the analysis but it isn’t, by itself, the analysis.
Ms. Beavers objected. “I think like Jennifer was saying, if we can’t read it out loud to adults, to me that would mean that it’s against our standards.”
Ms. Pippin agreed. She said in her county (Indian River), this was exactly why they had challenged so many library books as obscene, because “we are not allowed to read them at the school board meeting because they are deemed obscene and that goes against their regulations for public comment.”
At this point, Ms. Smith, the media specialist from Volusia, jumps in. She says comparing reading in public to an individual reading privately is an unfair comparison. When reading in a public forum, like in a publicly broadcasted school board meeting, you are reading to many people, you don’t know their ages, there may be young children, you may have people who haven’t chosen to listen to you. It is NOT the same thing as when a 16 year old chooses to read a book for their own private reading.
At this time, Ms. Baumbach suggests the group is not going to be able to reach a consensus on these issues and it is time for the group to move on. She recommends they simply put the statute in the training and allow districts to make their own decisions as far as what meets the standards of that statute or not. She says, “I, personally, do not see any other way to move forward and I feel like we have been very stuck on this issue since the beginning and there are a lot of other things that we need to discuss for this training so, unless somebody has a better idea on how to move forward, I’d like to propose that we move forward at this time.”
Ms. Beavers asks if the workgroup can return to the pornography conversation when the group discusses what is age appropriate. She says some school districts in Texas have spelled out that “bestiality” is not appropriate for anybody and wonders if the the workgroup would be willing to place a minimum age on some inappropriate content. Ms. Baumbach believes that would be “outside the scope of this work” and something districts could decide for themselves. Ms. Smith reminds the group that media specialists are asked, by state statute, to use peer reviews and peer reviews do suggest appropriate ages which help guide media specialists as well.
And the group agrees to move beyond porn… thank goodness.
I want to personally thank the media specialists and librarians, serving on this workgroup and in public schools and public libraries across the state, who are defending the value of a well stocked library that serves the needs of all children. (I’m especially looking at you, Ms. Smith.) The purpose of this HB 1467 Library Media Workgroup is to create an online training that will guide our state’s media specialists when selecting books and other library material. It will be important that the training align to state statute AND allow districts to choose books that reflect their own community and its “prevailing standards.”
You can watch this portion of the 10/11/22 meeting here.
The next scheduled meeting for the Library Media Workshop will be held virtually on 10/18/22, 1-2pm. You can find the details to listen in to it and further meetings here.
I am still very very upset that the parent members of this group DO NOT have minority representation at all. This to me is ethically wrong. I also disagree that two of these parent members bypassed the selection process. This is very wrong and absolutely makes me question the ethics of my state.
Sadly you are wrong. Parents in the workgroup were recommended by representatives across the state via phone as well as SOME by email. Also some on social media outlets. I’m sure your got your information from an uninformed blogger. I personally haven’t been contacted by ONE media outlet. Not one. So all of this information floating around on these blogs are opinions, not facts except when they quote what we say at these meetings that are public and subject to public records requests. No secrets. I’ve personally spent so much time on this over the past year and followed the laws and statutes that protect children and have had many books permanently removed in IRC and have many pending to review after this training process. Don’t believe everything you see blogged on the internet.
Jennifer, I understand you were recommended by Keith Flaugh, from the Florida Citizen’s Alliance. Is that true? Still, the Florida PTA, the largest parent organization in the state does not have any representation, which is concerning.
I was recommended by Keith Flaugh, a school board member on our school board in IRC, recommended by one of our Moms for Liberty cofounders and several others when the outreach went out for parent representatives. The PTA state organization OPPOSED the parental rights law and parental rights in education laws so that’s probably why that specific organization wasn’t represented. All superintendents and many community leaders received the invitation to nominate people for the workgroup and if the PTA or other organizations didn’t do that than they missed the opportunity. We have parents in the current workgroup on both sides of the argument and that’s balanced and fair. Maybe next time they will recommend a parent representative. In the meantime we still are working on finalizing the training and your blog is inaccurate. This work takes much time and effort to effectively be done and when rushed mistakes will be made. We will be sending the final draft to DOE and they will still have to approve it. We will have it submitted and ready to be finalized before the deadline as addressed in statute.
Thank you for that information. Again, this post you continue to comment on only refers to the 10/11/22 Workgroup meeting when the group decided to move on because the group was stuck on the “what is pornography” question and was unable to move on with the creation of the online training it had been tasked with. This blog clearly states there will be future meetings. Yes, I understand that on 10/25/22 you went back to discussions about book selection, the harmful to minors statute and the definition of pornography. Those discussions occurred AFTER this blog was published, which means there is NOW more information but does not make this blog “inaccurate.”
It can’t be printed in newspaper.
It can’t be read on the news.
It can’t be given to a minor OUTSIDE of the school building (felony).
It could not be watched in class in movie form (for heavens sake, one of the library books I read this week had around 400 f-bombs.
Why on earth should ANYONE be able to give it to a child at school?
It is not a felony to allow a teenager to check out a book with f-bombs in it because that doesn’t fit the definition of pornography. Some of the books are being challenged simply because they have a gay character, just because a character is gay doesn’t mean a book is pornography. Many of the books that have been discussed have racy passages in them but on the whole have literary value and do not exist to predominantly appeal to a prurient, shameful, or morbid interest. The law is pretty clear and not being able to read it on the news or publish it in a newspaper is not part of the definition. Did you read the post? Children who check out books from libraries are choosing them, these books are not being forced upon them.
The “F” word is not allowed to be broadcast on regular television programming. It’s considered obscene language by the FCC. It should also be considered obscene in books available to minors.
While the use of the “F word” might be obscene (and my parents taught me it was and I have taught my kids the same), the use of it in a book is not enough to call the entire book obscene or harmful to minors. That is exactly the point that the FLDOE lawyer was trying to make.
Unfortunately, in 2022, the use of the “F word” is very common – in movies, on cable television, on bumper stickers, t-shirts, chants at political rallies… we even had a President that said it in public. I wonder if “community standards as a whole” would even continue to consider it “patently offensive?’ Another good question for the lawyer.
The laws and statutes have to be followed and that was put into my presentation yesterday. Library books for children must be free of pornography and follow 847.001. Many other statutes and laws are included in the work we are doing. That is the work we are charged with and have to have these hard conversations to make the best training by following the laws and statutes and not opinions. If you want to have a conversation of facts feel free to reach out, but this blog is not completely factual.
This blog you are commenting on reflects only on the legal presentation by Ms. Bone, presented on 10/11/22. I understand from yesterday’s meeting that you have further concerns about the definitions of “pornography” and the “harmful to minors” statute. I agree you must follow the statutes (“It will be important that the training align to state statute AND allow districts to choose books that reflect their own community and its “prevailing standards.””) With the exception of the final paragraph (when I thanked the media specialists), I simply reported on what was presented and said at the meeting, so I am curious as to what you believe is not completely factual.
We are awaiting the definitions as requested multiple times by the workgroup from the Attorney General to complete our training. Ms. None couldn’t and didn’t answer the questions we asked and just recited the statutes and laws we already knew. The problem is that’s not acceptable to make a state training. The community standard for pornography and sexually explicit content doesn’t vary district to district. It’s state law and statutes that have to be followed and rape, incest, pedophilia, bestiality and more explained in graphic detail is pornography and/or sexually explicit content everywhere. And that’s what we are tasked to do, carry out the training for the state and when we don’t get answers to our questions we go up the chain of command. Just like for you as a board member you work for the will of the people and you have an attorney to ask questions to and if you don’t get the answers you can go to the DOE. That’s what we are doing at a higher level.
“patently offensive based upon the community standards as a whole as for minors”, and “literary value” are both subjective phrases with a spectrum of views. As a community member, and mother to school aged kids, I believe that the public library can best meet the community’s needs but school libraries should be held to a higher standard.
First of all, public schools are very diverse places with a spectrum of views. For many children, the school library is their only access to books. Librarians are trained to identify “literary value” etc. It is what they do.
I, too, am a mom. My kids are now teens. Especially when they were younger, we talked about what I believed was appropriate content (movies, tv, and books) for their age and why. Our standards were different from other families, and our kids understood what we believed and why. They also understood that while we wouldn’t take our 1st graders to PG-13 movies, other families might (and many did) and that was ok for their family. The same goes for books. My kids were great readers but they knew what content we felt was appropriate for their age (for example, “all” my daughters friends were reading the Twilight series when I felt she was too young. Also my son was capable of reading the entire Harry Potter series in 2nd grade but I felt the later books were too dark for his age.). Again, other families had other rules, and that was ok.
I understand parents want to protect their children from offensive language. But if you’ve been in an Elementary school lately you will quickly learn that there are students as young as 5-6 that regularly use the F word. 8-9 year olds from rough neighborhoods that will call others the B word at school. None of use want our students using these word on each other. However, they are apart of the everyday vocabulary for many students.
I really appreciate what you are doing w this blog!
This article is very misleading. I began watching the meetings. They are still in discussion on this topic. They showed actual porn in the books this week.
Why also would anyone want to ignore porn in a minor child’s library?
This statement is very disturbing: “And the group agrees to move beyond porn… thank goodness.”
This is very uncomfortable to read from a Board of Director at the FSBA and a school board member in Monroe County FL.
This post only refers to the 10/11/22 Workgroup meeting when the group decided to move on because they were stuck on the “what is pornography” question and were unable to move on with their creation of the online training they had been tasked with. Yes, I understand that on 10/25/22 they went back to discussions about book selection, the harmful to minors statute and the definition of pornography.
To be clear, I agree there should be NO pornography in school libraries but I learned a lot from the legal presentation by lawyer, Ms. Bone, about the legal definition of “harmful to minors” and “obscene”, which is why I wrote this blog. It is not enough to read an individual passage to qualify a book as pornography and, like Ms. Bone said, handing out pornography to children is a crime. She recommended the group start focusing on whether books were “suited to student needs and ability to comprehend” as well as appropriate for the grade and age level, to determine what books are appropriate for school libraries.
I am sorry I made you uncomfortable. I believed that Ms. Bone’s presentation was worth sharing.
Thanks for explaining it to us. I appreciate the time you take.
This is from your subsequent update:
The experienced staff member said: ““I was suggesting we give them a list of things, that if they’re in the book, the book should not be on the shelf. … [For example] ‘sadomasochism,’ ‘Pedophilia,’ …it should not be on our shelves. It should be as simple as that, we can work as a workgroup and we can come up with these things …”
Actually that is not the comment from the experienced staff member but rather the suggestion from a parent participant with an book banning agenda.