By Ronald Sampson
The political left has done a very good job at comparing everything it doesn’t like to the Nazis. Elon Musk and Donald Trump are literally Hitler, it sees fascism around every corner (even if it is the result of fairly held elections), and every action from the Trump administration is picked apart to attempt to find ways to compare it to the Third Reich, making gross representations of reality in the process.
And then there is book banning, which the political left often compares to book burning, an oft used Nazi tactic. Many left-leaning locales allowed rather suggestive books talking about sexuality and gender in a way that far surpasses anything that we learned about in health class growing up, ones that most normal people would consider inappropriate for children. Once parents learned about these, many were rightly outraged. Books such as Gender Queer have adult themes, sometimes explicit imagery, and often seem to encourage the sort of gender and sexual confusion that the progressive left has often leaned into and the majority of the country is uncomfortable with.
As is the sign of the times, gender and sexuality has become the predominant social hot-button of our times, and if nothing else it offers a chance to review content that is currently available to children and make sure that it has legitimate educational value. There is enough garbage available to them on apps like TikTok, the school library should be a place for intellectual exploration, not gender exploration.
That said, manias have a way of inhibiting thoughtful analysis, and the political right has to some degree been whipped into a mania about this subject (as has the political left in a mostly equal-but-opposite manner). And the group that challenged the 18 books that were reviewed, Moms for Liberty, is known for being somewhat bombastic and willing to ride the prevailing conservative trends. So was this done thoughtfully?
Scottsdale Unified actually reviewed the books that were suggested as being inappropriate, and it found 16 of the 18 to not have a reasonable place in a school library. As for those 16, it mentioned “references to child molestation, explicit sexual activity, drug abuse and references to “alternate” sexualities and gender ideologies” as what made them inappropriate. But the fact that it allowed two implies a relatively thoughtful review, with good reasons cited as to why they should stay.
It should be considered a positive that SUSD was both willing to hear the arguments of a group that can sometimes go too far, and willing to push back when it disagrees. Instead of simply riding a trend it conducted thoughtful analysis. We would be well served if all forms of leadership conducted itself in this manner.