Editor’s Note: The following commentary is excerpted from the Bacon’s Rebellion website. The full article, which is linked below, contains highly explicit quotations from reading materials that were assigned and/or made available to students in Fairfax County Public Schools.
Deborah Hommer | Bacon’s Rebellion
In Hudson, Ohio, several days ago, Mayor Craig Shubert addressed the School Board. “It has come to my attention that your educators are distributing essentially what is child pornography in the classroom,” he said. “I’ve spoken to a judge this evening, she’s already confirmed that, so I’m going to give you a simple choice. You either choose to resign from this board of education or you will be charged. Thank you.”
Schubert then walked away to riotous cheers from a crowd of outraged parents. Some of the writing that upset parents included violent scenarios like “choose how you will die” and “write a scene that begins. ‘It was the first time I killed a man,’” to weird sexual suggestions like “write a sex scene you wouldn’t show your mom,” and “write an X-rated Disney scenario.”
I am here to tell you that the English-required reading materials that outraged Hudson parents were mild compared to what’s found in Fairfax County Public Schools. Mayor Shubert, hold my beer.
On September 23, 2021, at the Fairfax County School Board meeting, Stacy Langton went to the podium and read from two books from the Fairfax High School library that contained explicit pornographic and pedophilia content. Since then numerous articles have been written about the meeting, and the video went viral.
This controversy is not new to FCPS. Many of FCPS’ English class students are required to read wholly inappropriate materials, including content on sexuality — homosexual, heterosexual, incest, pedophilia — violence, mutilation, murder, psychopathic cold-blooded killers, dystopia, racism, and vulgar, offensive language. An AP English class required reading contained sexually explicit material depicting gang rape and bestiality, prompting the 2016 Virginia General Assembly to pass HB 516, which would require the Board of Education to write a policy on sexually explicit instructional material requiring parents to be notified of the material, have an opportunity to review the material, and to find an alternative if parental approval is not provided.
HB 516 passed the General Assembly with bipartisan support only to have Governor Terry McAuliffe veto it. The House voted to override the Governor’s veto and was shy one vote of the 67 votes required. McAuliffe stated, “School boards are best positioned to ensure that our students are exposed to those appropriate literary and artistic works that will expand students’ horizons and enrich their learning experiences.” The Federalist published an article that reported on this controversy in a few schools and provided studies that illustrate that “Sexually explicit texts negatively affect teen minds.”