If you were watching the Cobb Board of Education meeting Thursday night, on two occasions the livestream was paused.
That’s because public commenters were reading from sexually explicit books the Cobb County School District has pulled from library shelves.
Earlier on Thursday, Superintendent Chris Ragsdale announced 13 more removals, following seven books that have been pulled in the last school year, due to graphic and obscene content he said are not age-appropriate for minors.
For the last year, some parents have blasted Ragsdale for “banning” books they allege have more to do with minority and LGBTQ students than adult content, and discourage students from embracing a culture of reading.
Recently, other parents and citizens have begun to respond to those charges, and in explicit fashion to match the content at hand.
One of them is East Cobb resident JoEllen Smith, who went up to the dais and handed out a copy of her remarks, topped by a photocopy of a graphic scene from one of the books, “Gender Queer,” depicting two boys engaging in oral sex.
She started her remarks by saying that “the Democratic candidates running for school board are saying the superintendent is banning books. Not true. The books they’re fighting for are kiddie porn, and probably illegal if owned by an adult.
“Here’s from a book that normalizes pedophilia and and incest. A 12-year-old girl has a baby by her father. Here’s the quote.”
At that point, Cobb school board attorney Suzann Wilcox said she could not let those sequences be aired due to federal regulations that “prohibit certain language and material from being broadcast.”
The district livestreams public meetings on its website, and they are shown on two cable systems—Comcast and Charter.
Wilcox said “we’re not going to stop you from reading, but . . . I’m going to give our technical team a moment to adjust and then you can resume.”
While those in attendance in the board meeting room heard the explicit language, here’s what viewers saw, with no audio, for a few moments:
East Cobb News has obtained a copy of the text and the graphic that Smith, a local Republican activist, gave to board members.
Smith’s verbal remarks are from other books that have been removed in Cobb.
While we are not subject to such regulations, we are not reproducing them fully in this post but linking to them here and here, so discretion is advised if you are interested in what was said.
When the livestream resumed, Smith concluded her remarks by saying that “there are hundreds of pro-LBGT books that don’t include kiddie porn. And it’s unfairly conflating homosexuality to pedophilia which is stigmatizing our gay youth.”
That was first instance of remarks not being aired in Cobb since the school book controversy first flared up last year.
Similar actions have taken place at other school board meetings around the country in recent months.
In April, a pastor was reading from “Push”—one of the books recently removed in Cobb—during a Broward Board of Education meeting in Florida when his microphone was cut off.
Last year, the Forsyth County School District was ordered to pay more than $100,000 in legal fees for trying to ban parents from reading from explicit books during school board meetings in 2022.
Before Smith spoke on Thursday, parent Sharon Hudson—a frequent critic of the book removals—chastised Ragsdale for his latest action.
Wearing a “Read Banned Books” shirt, she described herself as a Christian conservative Republican, but said there hasn’t been porn in Cobb schools.
“If he thinks it’s inappropriate, he’ll ban it and continue his reign of censorship,” she said. “No parent or student rights—just his decision of what they can and cannot read.”
Related:
- Kell PTSA holding Krispy Kreme fundraiser through September
- Cobb school district removes 13 more sexually explicit books
- East Cobb schools show gains in 2024 Milestones tests
- Cobb Youth Leadership announces 2024-25 class members
- Cobb school bus safety reminders for motorists and students
- Cobb school board adopts millage rate for FY 2025
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up and you’re good to go!
