BY HANK REICHMAN
A year ago I began a post to this blog, “Yesterday’s election results in Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and elsewhere have boosted the spirits of Democrats and progressives. One of the less widely publicized results, however, has been the stunning rebuke suffered by book-banners and transphobes like Moms for Liberty in school board elections in Iowa and elsewhere.” This year’s election results are sadly more dispiriting, if not downright devastating. We can and will assess what happened and gird our loins for future battles, but it’s also important to recognize some victories: once again book banners have gone down to defeat.
Take North Carolina, as reported by that state’s indispensable source of news, The Asssembly:
As chairman of Moore County’s school board, Robert Levy pushed a long list of ideas aligned with the Moms for Liberty, a “parental rights” group that started in Florida during the pandemic and quickly rose to national prominence.
Under Levy’s leadership, the Republican-majority school board made the swath of the Sandhills adjacent to Fort Liberty a vanguard in the culture wars centered on public education, approving policies forbidding discussion of “gender identity and gender fluidity,” restricting access to certain books, and banning teaching about structural racism, among other things.
That vote history, and the area’s deep-pocketed Republican donors, made Moore County a focal point in Michele Morrow’s run for the state’s top K-12 education post on the same suite of issues.
But this year, voters didn’t vindicate that vision. Morrow underperformed compared with other Republican candidates in staunchly conservative Moore County and lost her race statewide. Levy, backed by the local chapter of Moms for Liberty as well as the county GOP, lost his reelection bid by almost 5 percentage points, more than 2,500 votes. . . .
In addition to Morrow’s high-profile loss, five of seven North Carolina school board candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty chapters lost their races.
Voters appear to have chosen Robin Calcutt, a longtime Moore County educator who campaigned on putting aside such cultural fights, over Moms for Liberty-backed candidate Don Zawlocki. Zawlocki, a teacher at a private Christian school who also got the GOP’s stamp of approval, trailed Calcutt by 142 votes as of Friday.
The other Moore County school board seats up for election this year seem likely to be filled by Amy Dahl, a teacher who blames the current board for creating an “oppressive work environment,” and [Levy ally turned rival David] Hensley, who has recently advocated for the board to pursue a “viewpoint neutral” agenda.
Natosha Tew, until recently the chair of the Moms for Liberty’s New Hanover chapter, ranked last out of six candidates running for three seats on that county’s school board.
McKenzie Kelly, a mother of five who campaigned on her “pro-God, pro-life stance” and “commitment to keeping our children safe from inappropriate materials,” trailed her opponent by more than 7,000 votes for a seat on the Rowan-Salisbury school board.
Davidson County voters rejected Sheila Blower, who campaigned on removing “pornographic” books from school libraries, while strongly supporting Sherry Koontz, another Moms for Liberty-endorsed candidate whose campaign put a spotlight on her relief work in Western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene.
And in Gaston County, Janna Smith, who campaigned against “woke agendas,” ranked first among five candidates to represent Gastonia on the county school board. . . .
There’s much more gory detail in The Assembly’s reporting, but let’s turn now to Texas, where LoneStar Live reports that “most school board candidates who ran on a pro-book banning platform lost on Election Day.”
Texas Freedom to Read Project co-founder Frank Strong has tracked school board races across the state for years, publishing “The Book-Loving Texan’s Guide” on his Substack every election.
This election cycle, Strong identified 15 candidates who associated with book-banning groups, used pro-censorship talking points or proposed library restrictions while campaigning. Nine lost. . . .
Candidates backed by Moms for Liberty, a conservative group that has pushed for book bans and anti-LGBTQ+ policies across the nation, lost overwhelmingly, Strong said. This includes Brandi Burkman in the Leander Independent School District, who filed a police report in 2021 because “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison was available in high schools.
In Corpus Christi, candidate Samuel Aundra Fryer received less than 10% of the vote after using the anti-LGBTQ+ term “groomer” in an interview where he also opposed books that “push this whole LGBTQ mindset.” The city’s library board recently proposed policies to restrict minors from certain titles without parental input and make it easier to challenge books. . . .
While a majority of school board candidates associated with book bans lost, Strong said “young people are going to lose access to lots of books” in Texas next year because of other election results.
Both the Texas Legislature and the U.S. Congress may pass policies “much less amenable to books, learning, teachers, librarians, and students from marginalized communities,” he said.
“The statewide races and the national election really do put us in a darker place overall,” Strong said. “Even with a (school) board that really wants to protect the freedom to read, districts are going to be facing an avalanche of new legislation coming down after May (2025). I think the fight became a lot tougher, and that’s discouraging, but it’s also not surprising.”
The big exception in Texas was the Conroe Independent School District in the greater Houston area, where 160 titles have already been restricted and every school board trustee now has ties to book bans. And nationally Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice has already been floated for an appointment as Secretary of Education in the new Trump administration.
Contributing editor Hank Reichman is professor emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay; former AAUP vice-president and chair of the AAUP Foundation; and from 2012-2021 Chair of AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. His book, The Future of Academic Freedom, based in part on posts to this blog, was published in 2019. His Understanding Academic Freedom was published in October, 2021; a second edition will be published in March 2025.
