The Maryland State Board of Education has denied a parent’s appeal of a Carroll County schools policy update that bans books defined as “sexually explicit,” but the state board did express serious concerns about the updates approved by the Carroll school board on July 23, according to state appeal documents.
Jessica Bronson, a Carroll County Public Schools parent, filed the appeal after the Carroll Board of Education voted in January to change Policy IIAA, which guides the selection, evaluation and adoption of instructional materials. The change bans all library books and instructional materials determined to have “sexually explicit” content, which is defined as “unambiguously describing, depicting, showing, or writing about sex or sex acts in a detailed or graphic manner.” The changes made no distinctions between grade level.
Bronson argued the policy change is “so broad and vague that it is arbitrary, unreasonable, and a violation of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution,” according to the state’s order on the appeal. In an interview Tuesday, Bronson added that she’s concerned that book bans allowed by the policy update could be motivated by “personal political beliefs [rather] than the quality of education” and a way to use “our kids’ education to impose a political agenda.”
“At the end of the day, I’m just a parent who wants my child to have access to books,” Bronson said. “I believe that you can decide what’s right for your own child, but you don’t get to dictate what’s right for my family or other families.”
In its ruling, the state board denied Bronson’s appeal because it was not clear “that Policy IIAA is unconstitutional on its face.” But the state board also expressed concerns about how the policy could be used to violate the First Amendment rights of students because of the superintendent’s new “unfettered discretion to select and remove library books and curriculum material,” the “broad authority” that would determine “what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion,” and impacts on the county board’s obligation to “provide educational equity” to students to comply with state equity regulations, according to appeal documents.
Cary Hansel, a civil rights, trial and appellate lawyer in Baltimore City, said while the state denied the appeal of the policy on its face, it also gave “strong warnings” to the Carroll school board about possible misapplication or abuse of the policy to violate the First Amendment.
“The board is sending a very strong message that although, in the board’s view, this policy should be not struck down in its entirety, that it could be misapplied in ways that are unconstitutional and those challenges would be successful,” Hansel explained. “The Carroll County board is being warned that this policy could be applied in unconstitutional ways, and if so, the state board will act.”
Hansel also said that because the policy is so broad, Carroll’s definition of “sexually explicit” could be applied to various library books and materials, such as the English dictionary, biology textbooks or classic literature from writers such as William Shakespeare.
The state board also noted concerns with the broad scope of the policy, stating that “many traditional curriculum materials such as the dictionary, history and science textbooks, and classic literary novels could arguably be banned under this policy,” according to appeal documents.
The updated policy also does not vary bans on “sexually explicit” content by grade level, according to appeal documents.
“It’s important for people to understand that there are ways of drafting these policies that might preclude the types of objectionable material, but still permit the great works of literature, Shakespeare, poetry, biology textbooks and the like,” Hansel said. “This policy doesn’t do a great job of carefully drawing that distinction and I think the state board recognized that and recognized that it might be applied in an unconstitutional way.”
Carroll Board of Education member Steve Whisler moved to review the policy last October, about a month after Superintendent Cynthia McCabe ordered 58 books removed from school library shelves amid challenges from the county’s chapter of Moms for Liberty, a conservative group that advocates for parental rights in schools. On Jan. 10, the school board unanimously voted to update the policy.
As of April, 11 of those books were banned from all of the system’s library shelves by the school system’s Reconsideration Committee.
The state board decided Bronson’s case about a week before Wendy Novak, another school system parent, filed an appeal July 30 with the state on the school board’s decision to reject two books about different kinds of families from the prekindergarten and kindergarten curriculum. Novak also requested a Title IX investigation into board members Donna Sivigny and Whisler based on comments she said labeled same-sex families as “controversial” and created a harmful environment for students in the school system.
The Maryland State Board of Education said it had “no further comment at this time” on its decision. Carey Gaddis, the communications officer for the Carroll school system, said in an emailed statement: “Carroll County Public Schools does not comment on active parent appeals to the Maryland State Board of Education.”
Bronson represented herself in her appeal and is “considering all her options” including further appeals, she said Tuesday.
