Schools have duty to vet content for kids

Are neo-Neanderthals banning books in Elizabeth? 

It’s not a return to the Stone Age that the Elizabeth School District is seeking to set boundaries in its school library collections that align with community values and prioritize age-appropriate educational content.  

Not everyone sees it that way, and hard-core progressives are using a heavy-handed lawsuit to override common-sense boundaries for ideological — rather than educational — reasons. 

The legal wildfire erupted when the district began a process, which included citizen scrutiny and transparency, that resulted in 18 titles being removed from the district’s collection. The works, in the words of a district legal filing, contained “graphic violence, graphic sexual content, extreme drug and alcohol use and suicidal ideation.” 

They are not kidding.  

I could not include excerpts in question in this space without the editor’s red pen kicking in and a follow-up email asking me if I had lost my mind. 

Nonetheless, far-left absolutists are asserting in federal court that public officials lack the ability to limit the availability of such content to minors in public schools. 

This battle for common sense is worth fighting. 

A loss in this case risks setting a precedent that will neuter the ability of elected school boards and parents to assert basic local values — and risks needlessly giving kids broad access to age-inappropriate material.

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All over America, school districts make decisions constantly about what is educationally sound in teaching controversial topics. For example, they set boundaries using content filters since virtually all learning is now done on laptops. 

Are school district filters a mark of creeping, anti-free-speech authoritarianism?

Hardly. Schools know they have a moral, ethical — and educational — duty to limit content that is deemed too mature, violent or sexually explicit for students. In other words, they censor content. 

So, if the Elizabeth School District loses this suit and meaningful, community-driven content barriers are erased, wouldn’t online filters be the next logical target? What is the difference between restrictions on books on shelves and websites on laptops?

None. 

But let the courts continue in this “no limits” line of legal reasoning and invalidate content filters. The ensuing public comment periods in Colorado school board meetings — in liberal and conservative communities alike — will resemble a chorus of scalded cats. 

I have had personal interaction with ideologues who believe we harmfully clutter the intellectual freedom of young people when we set up even modest guardrails.  

Several years ago, I served as an appointed Trustee of Douglas County Libraries. Somewhat by happenstance we learned that the library system had zero controls on adult materials being checked out by children. And library management wasn’t interested in putting any in place.

With automated library check-out kiosks, a kid with his or her own card — which is not uncommon — could have checked out literally anything available in the building.

“The Joy of Sex” with graphic how-to images? Enjoy, Johnny! 

Our citizen board demanded unanimously that the library management, despite significant objections and foot-dragging, create a system allowing parents to set content limits on their children’s cards. 

This same type of people who resisted having moms and dads involved in the public library choices of their kids are now laboring to override them in school libraries.

Which raises the question of why Americans continue to elect school boards as we have done for generations. The antagonists in Elizabeth, and their fellow travelers, view these elected leaders as nuisances to enlightened policy.  In their view, local parents and taxpayers should simply turn over the management of the district including curricula and library content to (preferably progressive) education professionals. Community standards that wish to fence out inappropriate content must be dismissed since children’s needs are subservient to a greater societal good. 

Leftists are increasingly encroaching on the policy prerogatives of democratically elected leaders and the God-given rights of parents. Kudos to leaders in Elizabeth for standing tall for what remains of common sense and decency in Colorado. 

Sean Duffy is a former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Bill Owens and Colorado-based strategic communications consultant. He now serves as vice president at a philanthropic foundation. The views expressed here are his own.