ATLANTA– A proposal that would require school libraries to notify parents of every book their child checks out was advanced by Georgia senators on Tuesday, while a proposal to subject school librarians to criminal charges for distributing material containing obscenity in the wings awaits.
The measures are part of a broad and ongoing push by Republicans in many states to remove what they consider inappropriate materials from schools and libraries, saying books and electronic materials corrupt children.
Opponents say it is a censorship campaign designed to block children’s freedom to learn, while silencing teachers and librarians for fear of losing their jobs or worse.
Senators in Georgia are also considering bills to force all public and school libraries in the state to sever ties with the American Library Association and to limit the ability of school libraries to own or acquire works that depict intercourse or sexual arousal. Neither measure advanced out of committee before a deadline next week for bills to pass from their original chamber.
The Senate Education and Youth Committee voted 5-4 on Tuesday to refer Senate Bill 365 to the full Senate for more debate. The proposal would allow parents to choose to receive an email when their child purchases library materials.
Sen. Greg Dolezal, the Cumming Republican who is sponsoring the bill, said the Forsyth County school district, which has for years publicly fought over the books students should have access to, is already sending the emails. Other advocates said it’s important to ensure parents’ rights to raise their children the way they want are guaranteed.
“I cannot understand the resistance to letting parents know what their children are seeing, doing and participating in while they are in school, especially in a public school system,” said Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch, a Republican from Dahlonega.
Opponents said it is important for students to explore their interests and that the bill could violate students’ First Amendment rights.
“This is part of a larger national and Georgian trend to restrict access,” said Nora Benavidez, a board member of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation and an attorney for Free Press, a group that seeks to democratize the media. “The logical endpoint of where this bill, and others as well, takes us is that children are less exposed to ideas.”
The proposal to subject school librarians to criminal penalties if they violate state obscenity laws, Senate Bill 154, is even more controversial. Current law exempts public librarians, as well as those who work for public schools, colleges and universities, from penalties for distributing material that meets Georgia’s legal definition of “harmful to minors.”
Dolezal argues that school librarians should be subject to such penalties, though he introduced an amendment Tuesday that would subject librarians to penalties only if they “knowingly” distribute such materials. He argues that Georgia should not have a double standard where teachers can be prosecuted for obscenity while librarians down the hall cannot. He said his real goal is to drive such material out of school libraries.
“The purpose of this bill is to go upstream in the procurement process and make sure that we don’t allow things in our libraries that would cause anyone to ever face any kind of criminal prosecution,” Dolezal said.
Supporters of the bill hope to use the threat of criminal penalties to drive most sexual content out of libraries, even though much sexual content does not meet Georgia’s obscenity standard.
“If you exploit children, you need to be held accountable,” said Rhonda Thomas, a conservative education activist who helped form a new group, Georgians for Responsible Libraries. “You will notice that our students are behind in reading, math, science, but they will definitely know how to masturbate.
Robert “Buddy” Costley, of the Georgia Association of Educational Leaders, said the bill won’t solve the substantive problems activists worry about.
“My fear is that if we tell parents that this is the solution – you media specialists, the people who have been working in our country for two hundred years to lend books, they are the problem – there will be people who will sue the media . specialists instead of tackling the real problem,” said Costley. ___
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Nora Benavidez worked for PEN America. She is a board member of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation and an attorney for Free Press, a group that aims to democratize the media.