Sexually explicit books are one thing. But with latest vote, Keller ISD board goes too far

Schools should be bastions of education but are increasingly playgrounds for politics. In the Fort Worth area, Southlake has gotten much of the attention, but Keller may be the bigger focal point now.

On Monday night, the Keller ISD board took the next step in cracking down on controversial books, voting to prohibit library books or instructional materials that discuss gender fluidity. Trustees have gone too far, way past policing obscenity and sexual content and more into denying gender fluidity and shutting down the entire discussion, even arguments from the conservative perspective.

Not only is that bad for students who may be struggling with these issues, its legality is dubious. The district is surely headed for a costly federal lawsuit.

The ban is broad and vague. Instead of targeting something that’s specifically egregious — like books aimed at young people containing explicit sexual content — it just wipes out any book that discusses gender fluidity at all, even if it’s introductory in nature.

While it’s true that few children and young people will seek out books on this theme, the handful that will may need the information and support found in the pages of a book describing gender fluidity.

And it’s too heavy-handed. Trustees could have restricted certain material by age. They could have allowed for a parental consent requirement. This smacks of an authoritarian response to a topic that makes many uncomfortable.

There’s also a larger issue at play here, which is that banning specific books, or an entire theme of books seems like everyone, school boards and parents alike, may be missing the forest for the trees. Texas kids are struggling in school compared to kids in other states. Books aside, shouldn’t the main focus of school boards be whether kids are nailing the basics?

Social topics will inevitably be addressed in school, but how much does it matter if kids graduate from Keller ISD, or anywhere else in Texas, without proficiency in basic subjects?

This debate has been ongoing for at least a year. In August, Keller ISD’s struggles with book bans made national headlines because parents had questioned “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” and the Bible. Under Keller ISD’s protocol at the time, challenged books were immediately removed from school libraries until a further review could take place.

At the time, we said that it was obvious some parents were hijacking the struggle to make a political statement and that Keller ISD should relax a bit. It didn’t. A recently elected conservative majority seems determined to dig in.

“Book banning” is a heated topic. The recent flare-up around topics of race, sex and gender started with sexually explicit books such as “Gender Queer,” prompting school boards and concerned parents to consider: Should controversial books be removed from schools at the behest of vocal parents, or is it the school’s job to make available to students an array of books that address social topics?

The problem here is the broad framing of the new policy. Disallowed is material that “espouses the view that it is possible for a person to be any gender or none based solely on that person’s feelings or preferences” or “supports hormone therapy or other medial treatments or procedures” for transgender individuals.

Suddenly, instead of targeting sexually explicit material, the school board is trying to simply deny the very existence of these issues. Do trustees think there are no students dealing with gender identity in Keller, or that barring discussion of it will somehow make it go away? The move seems to be a direct violation of laws prohibiting LGBT discrimination, and it’ll cost the district when the policy goes to court.

A blanket ban seems like a dramatic overreach and a slippery slope for other subjects down the road. And it’s a continued distraction from what the real focus of what education should be.