Pushback: Court orders school board to stop censoring and banning parents
Bring a gun to a knife fight: In a victory for free speech, a federal judge has ruled that the censorship and banning of some parents by the Forsyth County Board of Education in Georgia was unconstitutional, and must cease immediately.
This is a follow-up of a previous blacklist story from back in August, when those parents sued the board because it would not permit them to speak at board meetings during public comment about the pornography the board was allowing in schools.
Multiple district residents, including Mama Bears members and plaintiffs in the lawsuit Alison Hair and Cindy Martin, have used their time to read aloud from school library books they consider pornographic. Yet while these materials are available to kids in school, the Chair has cut off and banned speakers who read from them at Board meetings when he deems the language inappropriate or profane.
This catch-22 robs parents of the ability to confront board members with the very language they themselves consider inappropriate for children, such as graphic descriptions of sex acts. After plaintiff Alison Hair attempted to read one such passage at a March 15 board meeting, she received a letter signed by every member of the Board of Education prohibiting her from participating in any future meetings until she provides a written guarantee that she will abide by the Chair’s directives.[emphasis mine]
The suit [pdf] was filed by the Institute for Free Speech (IFS) for Hair and Martin, as well as the independent parents organization called Mama Bears of Forsyth County.
That suit has now won its first victory, though only the first. Though the suit only requested $17.91 in monetary damages (a number matching the year the First Amendment was ratified), the board will have to pay the lawyer and court costs, which will definitely impact its budget.
Furthermore, in the November 8, 2022 election two of these board members, Wesley McCall and Kristin Morrissey were up for a vote. McCall retained his position (running unopposed), but Morrissey was replaced by Republican Mike Valdes.
What should make this whole story even more disgusting is that both the previous and present board is made up entirely of Republicans. This odious behavior was not done by Democrats, but by the so-called defenders of conservative values.
Future Forsyth school board meetings should be quite entertaining, as the new board will face heightened parent criticism that can no longer be silenced.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Bring a gun to a knife fight: In a victory for free speech, a federal judge has ruled that the censorship and banning of some parents by the Forsyth County Board of Education in Georgia was unconstitutional, and must cease immediately.
This is a follow-up of a previous blacklist story from back in August, when those parents sued the board because it would not permit them to speak at board meetings during public comment about the pornography the board was allowing in schools.
Multiple district residents, including Mama Bears members and plaintiffs in the lawsuit Alison Hair and Cindy Martin, have used their time to read aloud from school library books they consider pornographic. Yet while these materials are available to kids in school, the Chair has cut off and banned speakers who read from them at Board meetings when he deems the language inappropriate or profane.
This catch-22 robs parents of the ability to confront board members with the very language they themselves consider inappropriate for children, such as graphic descriptions of sex acts. After plaintiff Alison Hair attempted to read one such passage at a March 15 board meeting, she received a letter signed by every member of the Board of Education prohibiting her from participating in any future meetings until she provides a written guarantee that she will abide by the Chair’s directives.[emphasis mine]
The suit [pdf] was filed by the Institute for Free Speech (IFS) for Hair and Martin, as well as the independent parents organization called Mama Bears of Forsyth County.
That suit has now won its first victory, though only the first. Though the suit only requested $17.91 in monetary damages (a number matching the year the First Amendment was ratified), the board will have to pay the lawyer and court costs, which will definitely impact its budget.
Furthermore, in the November 8, 2022 election two of these board members, Wesley McCall and Kristin Morrissey were up for a vote. McCall retained his position (running unopposed), but Morrissey was replaced by Republican Mike Valdes.
What should make this whole story even more disgusting is that both the previous and present board is made up entirely of Republicans. This odious behavior was not done by Democrats, but by the so-called defenders of conservative values.
Future Forsyth school board meetings should be quite entertaining, as the new board will face heightened parent criticism that can no longer be silenced.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
There are apparently RINOs at all government levels.
Why is there never punishment for breaking the supreme laws of our constitution?
I am an independent since both parties enjoy the control and have numerous swamp dwellers. I cannot be a democrat because the have become the far left. I am not a Republican because of leaders like McConnell, McCarthy,etc.
my kids are now grown but when they were school age the school board meetings were very well attended. The board also turned over often and was at the time responsive to parents concerns. The left controlling education seems to have changed that.
Metallica: Kill ‘Em All (1983)
Seek and Destroy
https://youtu.be/AgBDAqWaPrc
6:55
Republicans as a whole, have been such a disappointment that I deregistered as one of them and re-registered as independent – in CA. I am waiting for the Josh Hawley republicans to move that party to the center and welcome all comers who are neither radical left wing-bat nor radical right wing-bat. Americans are largely patriotic, sane centrists.
Censoring, compelling, mandating, it’s all related:
IF YOU EVER WONDERED
If you ever wondered whether you were being managed and sold out as an American both domestically and internationally without your consultation and consent or vote by unqualified and “very superior” politicians “with all the best intensions” of course. As opposed to given choices as to how you as an individual, AS AN AMERICAN, want to deal with your health and the care and drugs and treatments that you and your doctor determine are appropriate for you. Well wonder no more (D).
Dr. Campbell on the G20 meeting in Bali: https://youtu.be/zVBcITMAqnM They arrive at the G20 meeting in a private jet and eating Wagu steak while you are scheduled to start eating insects and travel on electric bikes and scooters.
Dr. Campbell becomes more and more let’s say disillusioned and unhappy with the all-inclusive management trajectory the powers that be in the world and the G20 are on. You will comply.
Why throughout history is it those geniuses who originate from Austria who rise to the top of the heap in insisting how the people of the world are to be managed? Why is that? (Think FTX, they are also geniuses (D)
Klause Schwab, head of the World Economic Forum. You remember the “In the future you will own nothing, and you will be happy” guy. Best friend of “Progressive” radical captain chaos George Soros (D). They as Austrians apparently know best what is best for you, your family and the people of the world. I am trying to think of other aspirational leaders from Austria in the last century or so who also had a penchant for organizing and “managing” people. Is it in the genes? Hmmmmm.
What could go wrong? (Why do you need a say in what happens to you and your family anyway?)
https://apis.mail.aol.com/ws/v3/mailboxes/@.id==VjN-_95qz8vtNQnj2guvJpSi615JXjYizy9bcZuM2MCqJDk8zBIwKj0CmLH_qmCDE5NsTJVJXmOu9vG5vVhaOWavzw/messages/@.id==AOfS21AxU0pxY3j4kAnEAMMCnMw/content/parts/@.id==2/thumbnail?appid=AolMailNorrin&downloadWhenThumbnailFails=true&pid=2
Violating citizens’ rights should automatically prompt removal of the criminal from the office inappropriately used in said violation. How this is not obvious to all is beyond me. Considering every member of that board signed the unconstitutional letter, they should all be forced to resign at the very least. More appropriately, prohibited from holding any public office for life.
Bob Ross:
Forced by who?
This is politics and you are thinking pragmatically and that is exactly opposite thinking related to the system. You really must think backwards and upside down to properly understand this and politics in general.
The only forcing can be done by those who vote them into power.
Once someone is empowered, they bring with that empowerment the ability to act in their fiduciary capacity, and so they act.
What is the nature of power?
If its so bad that you can not listen to it in the public forum then maybe it should not be in children’s class rooms.
Leave it for collage.
Anticom
November 19, 2022 at 8:04 am
Americans are largely patriotic, sane centrists.
Americans are largely progressives now. What is currently “centrist” is actually pretty far to the left as compared to the societal principles required for our free Republic to be founded and to thrive. Progressive education (which is *all* publicly funded schooling above the level of one-room schoolhouses) has always been about replacing Christianity with what we would call Marxism today. And culture and academia for the last half a century or so has been about the same thing – evangelizing into progressivism. The Overton Window has moved considerably in the last 70 years. That includes the propriety of government “charity”, the respectability of hedonism, and the amount of government interference in our lives to “protect” us.
The only way to get our Republic back is to evangelize the electorate back into Christian morals and American principles. Move the Overton Window waaaaay back to the “right” and the voting will take care of itself.
(BTW, I loathe the “left/right” concept. No one has been able to actually describe what “right” means, except for “meanies who hate people.” I think there are two and three axis systems that better quantify cultural and political leanings. Unfortunately, none of those get much traction because humans are often dumb critters who prefer us/them to actual thinking. But that way of thinking is why “centrist” always has so much moral weight – look at me, I’m the sane one, everybody else is crazy. If you are going to make that sort of claim, then put more effort into it than “left/center/right”.)
Well, felgerkarb. The italics should generally end after “sane centrists” in the quote. /sigh/
GWB: I have fixed the italics for you.
Thank you, Robert!
GWB,
You wrote: “I loathe the “left/right” concept. No one has been able to actually describe what ‘right’ means, except for ‘meanies who hate people.’”
You loathe the “concept” because you do not understand it. Too many people have demonized each side as haters when, in fact, they are not. Although the leftists may be projecting their own feelings onto others.
What we define as the “right” of center is the concept of a less powerful government and more power for We the People. The United States was founded on this concept. It is why we don’t have a king or other monarch, which was the standard form of government for millennia. Adams Smith’s inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations was revolutionary, showing how individual decisions among the population of a nation can run an economy better than the central control of government. The conglomeration of all those hands of control replace the one hand of control from above. Ground up economics has a power from all the people rather than the limited power of government. It is why space commerce is growing in this century while it was practically stagnant in its first half century. Each person earns a living by solving someone else’s problem. (“I’m hungry.” “I have food to sell to you.”) A downside is that some people do not like being responsible for their own lives, because any small failure becomes their own fault.
What we define as the “left” of center is the concept of more power of government and less power for We the People. Most of the world has lived under this philosophy for millennia. Monarchs get the idea that they are their nations’ problem solvers, because so many people come to them to solve their problems. Inevitably, so many people have problems that this power is delegated, and the delegates end up becoming corrupt, causing more problems for which they are bribed to solve. The idea that government acts as mother and father for the adult population has been strong, because it is easy to see that the poor are poor because they are unable to make good decisions. It is why Marxism was founded. The idea is that experts run things and We the People live better lives for it. (“I’m hungry.” “I have food to give to you that we took from the farmer.”) A downside is that any small failure becomes a problem for everyone, but at least it is someone else’s fault. Another downside is that to solve one person’s problem almost always increases problems for someone else or for everyone else.
What we define as the “center” is the compromise of these two philosophies. It is a balance. It would seem to be the correct place to be, except that those who say that they are centrists do not agree on which areas of life should be government controlled and which should be controlled by the individual. As a group, they are a mass of confusion as to what is the correct thing to do for virtually any situation. A safety net seems like a good idea, but as William Bradford discovered with his Plymouth Colony experiment, too many people treat these concepts as a hammock rather than a net; some people work hard without much reward, and others gain the rewards without the work. It may seem that a woman should have control over her body, but where was her control when she was getting herself knocked up? Government gets involved in education, but somehow the quality of education plummets. Charity begins at home, but someone has decided that there are more people in need than charities to give to them. Healthcare for all is declared to be a right, but certain people have to stand last in line for that care.
Understanding the Left and the Right:
I have been explaining things like the Left / Right Fetterman “Win” in PA in this way.
The Democrats are insect like and have a hive mind and they as candidates operate and vote as they are direct to by the party machine brain. They as individuals are not leaders in the least, they are ideologues and are in Congress to act as a unit. And that is very effective in numbers politics.
Fetterman, Biden, Harris any of them (D), are but life size cardboard cutout placeholders and are where they are because they know what is expected of them and they crave and seek the discipline. Just bodies.
The Republicans on the other hand all see themselves as people who have vision, are leaders, and can be president and they tend to not work as a unit and are more likely to act as individuals because of that.
Independance and visionary thinking is not good in the game of numbers politics. You need numbers working in concert in order to prevail in politics.
If you don’t win you do not have access to power.
What to do?