Lynch at Large

This is not light reading. Taylor is mounting a direct assault on the education establishment's "go to hell" attitude. She has three detailed and precise requests for consideration at the scheduled August 25 board meeting. I have copied her entire letter, which is most worthy of consideration.

Bobby, Steve, and Board
  As per policy 1.14, I formally request that these be agenda items at the upcoming school Board meeting August 25, 2005.  Below is my “sufficiently descriptive” narrative. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Also I would like to be placed on the Citizen Participation portion of the meeting.


Item #1 I am formally requesting this item be placed on the agenda for Aug 25th, 2005
I believe that the enclosed Arkansas State codes are being violated by having unidentified amounts of material that by any reasonable parent, applying contemporary community standards, would be construed as pornography. I enclose the following excerpt from "Deal With It! A whole new approach to your body, brain and life as a gURL" available at Woodland Jr. High (students as young as 12 attend there) as proof of such depictions:
“going down on him giving a blow job fellatio oral sex on a guy: Bringing a guy to climax using your mouth and tongue.. I try to look into my boyfriend’s eyes when I’m sucking.. get him off faster.. lick and suck his balls.. If my mouth gets tired I use my hands to jerk him off.. until I can suck again.. make my mouth soft but tight.. Concentrate on the head.. Underneath the shaft is also a good place.. roll your tongue down the bottom of it. If it’s.. big one.. don’t try to get the whole thing in your mouth.. might.. gag.. have fun and just go with what seems right. ..literally sucked on his penis.. when you ‘suck’.. kinda put him in your mouth.. bob your head up and down sliding your hand up and down his penis at the same time. ..think guys like it better if you swallow, but if it grosses you.. move your mouth away.. cover the head with your hand so he’s not squirting all over the place. ..ain’t so bad. ..Wouldn’t put it on my cornflakes, but it doesn’t taste too heinous!”
And this from "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents" available at McNair Middle School (students as young as 10)
“He was nude... He was wore down with frustration, he said. I was cruel. ... didn’t understand that unlike a girl it was physically painful for guys not to have sex .... I thought you’d be hot-blooded being Spanish ... under all that Catholic bullshit, you’d be really free.... But Jesus, you’re worse than a fucking Puritan.”

- “..I was frightened of having sex with a man who called it getting laid. .....I played it out in my head. .....We would make love .... we would screw and fuck and ball and get laid...”

- “..five years later ... I’d had a couple of lovers. I was on birth control... lapsing from my heavy-duty Catholic background.. (Rudy called)... he came on over...said, Hey Jesus Christ, I’ve waited five years, and you look like you’ve gotten past all your hang-ups. Lets just fuck. I threw him out.”

- I enclose 6-17-402 as a determinate for "certified teaching license" showing that term to include a licensed classroom teacher, administrator, counselor, or librarian.
____ 6-17-402. Rules and regulations.
(a)(1) The State Board of Education shall promulgate rules and regulations for the issuance, licensure, relicensure, and continuance of licensure of teachers in the public schools of this state.
(2) In addition to other requirements, any person applying for initial licensure as a teacher in the public schools or a licensed teacher applying for a license in an additional area shall take and complete a test recognized by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and approved by the board, and submit the scores to the Department of Education.

(b) No applicant for initial licensure or licensure in an additional area shall receive a license unless the applicant scores at or above the minimum level set by the board.

(c) All colleges and universities in this state shall report the results of the examinations to the department upon request.

(d) The board shall not delegate to any college or university any of the board's powers or duties pertaining to the issuance, licensure, relicensure, and continuance of licensure of teachers in public schools in this state.

(e) The board shall waive the examination requirements under subsection (a) of this section for individuals applying for licensure in Arkansas who have a valid out-of-state teaching license and three (3) years' documented teaching experience as required by the rules and regulations promulgated by the board.

(f) For purposes of this section, "certified teaching license" includes that license of a licensed classroom teacher, administrator, counselor, or librarian.

History. Acts 1979, No. 162, § 1; 1981, No. 814, § 1; 1983, No. 736, § 1; 1983 (Ex. Sess.), No. 5, § 1; 1985, No. 746, § 1; 1985, No. 1082, § 1; A.S.A. 1947, § 80-1201; Acts 1989, No. 414, § 1; 2003, No. 754, § 1.


6-17-410. Teacher licensure - First-time applicant, renewal application, revocation, suspension, and probation.
(11) Engaging children in sexually explicit conduct for use in visual or print media, transportation of minors for prohibited sexual conduct, or use of a child or consent to use of a child in a sexual performance by producing, directing, or promoting a sexual performance by a child, as prohibited in §§ 5-27-303, 5-27-305, 5-27-402, and 5-27-403;

(12) Distribution to minors, as prohibited in § 5-64-406;

(16) Pandering or possessing visual or print medium depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child, as prohibited by § 5-27-304;

5-27-304. Pandering or possessing visual or print medium depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child.
(a) No person, with knowledge of the character of the visual or print medium involved, shall do any of the following:
(1) Knowingly advertise for sale or distribution, sell, distribute, transport, ship, exhibit, display, or receive for the purpose of sale or distribution any visual or print medium depicting a child participating or engaging in sexually explicit conduct;

(2) Knowingly solicit, receive, purchase, exchange, possess, view, distribute, or control any visual or print medium depicting a child participating or engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

(b) Any person who violates subdivisions (a)(1) or (2) of this section shall be guilty of a Class C felony for the first offense and a Class B felony for any subsequent offenses.


5-68-303. Promoting obscene materials.

(a) Except as otherwise provided in § 5-68-308, a person commits promoting obscene materials if he knowingly promotes, or has in his possession with intent to promote, any obscene material.
(b) As used in this section, "material" means any writing, picture, motion picture, films, slides, drawings, or other visual reproductions.

(c) Promoting obscene materials is a Class D felony.


History. Acts 1981 (Ex. Sess.), No. 28, § 3; A.S.A. 1947, § 41-3585.2.


5-68-501. Definitions.


(2) "Harmful to minors" means that quality of any description, exhibition, presentation, or representation, in whatever form, of nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sadomasochistic abuse, when the material or performance, taken as a whole, has the following characteristics:

(A) The average person eighteen (18) years of age or older applying contemporary community standards would find that the material or performance has a predominant tendency to appeal to a prurient interest in sex to minors;

(B) The average person eighteen (18) years of age or older applying contemporary community standards would find that the material or performance depicts or describes nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sadomasochistic abuse in a manner that is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community with respect to what is suitable for minors; and

(C) The material or performance lacks serious literary, scientific, medical, artistic, or political value for minors;

(3) "Knowingly" means having general knowledge of, or reason to know, or a belief or ground for belief which warrants further inspection or inquiry of
both:

(A) The character and content of any material described in this section which is reasonably susceptible to examination by the defendant; and

(B) The age of the minor, provided that an honest mistake shall constitute an excuse from liability under this section if the defendant made a reasonable bona fide attempt to ascertain the age of the minor;

(4) "Magnetic disk memory" means a memory system that stores and retrieves binary data on record-like metal or plastic disks coated with a magnetic material, including, but not limited to, hard disk drives and floppy diskettes;

(5) "Magnetic tape memory" means a memory system that stores and retrieves binary data on magnetic recording tape;

(6) "Material" means any book, magazine, newspaper, pamphlet, poster, print, picture, figure, image, description, motion picture, film, record, recording tape, CD-ROM disk, magnetic disk memory, magnetic tape memory, video tape, or other media, but does not include matters displayed, transmitted, retrieved, or stored on the internet or other network for the electronic dissemination of information;

(7) "Minor" means any person under the age of eighteen (18) years;

(13) "Sexual conduct" means acts of masturbation, homosexuality, sexual intercourse, or physical contact with a person's clothed or unclothed genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or female breast; and

(14) "Sexual excitement" means the condition of the human male or female genitals when in a state of sexual stimulation or arousal.

I would also submit that this material usurps several District policies, including but not limited to, Student Discipline Policy 5.17; Sexual Harassment Policies 4180& 4250; Student Publications and the Distribution of Literature 5.14, that are imposed upon the children of this district. Perpetrating an irresponsible and harmful double standard on our children and implying “seductive encouragement” as determined by the Supreme Court case Ginsberg v. New York, a U.S. Supreme Court decision, that explains how sexually explicit material is "seductive encouragement" to children. "The child is protected in his reading of pornography by the knowledge that it is pornographic, i.e. disapproved," the court decision reads. "It is outside of parental standards and not a part of his identification process. To openly permit implies parental approval and even suggests seductive encouragement."

I would also point out that a teacher of 12th grade students could not read this material aloud to a class without consequence, a student could not give a written and/or oral book report on this material, and 2 students could not discuss the content of this material on school property without violating school policy and being disciplined . I would also add that if read aloud at a PTA meeting parents would be incensed and answered would be forth coming.
I also believe that a teacher reading this to a single student could face charges of sexual harassment, child endangerment, sexual assault and many other crimes that are perpetrated on minor children by adults with heinous motives.

I would suggest that this material violates unwritten but widely accepted societal decency standards, and by a wide margin would be branded pornography by any reasonable adult.

The problem is that Parents do not have any way, at present, to restrict their child from obtaining this material. This material is not identified in any manner; no list, no rating system nothing, it is placed along side myriads of other books in the Student library. But shockingly some are recognized as “award winning” and would be prime suspects for children seeking great literature. Additionally parents are prohibited by law to obtain their own minor child’s school library check out history, once again preventing the parent from knowing what their child has accessed, infringing on the ability for any parent to instill moral and ethical beliefs of their choosing.

No one has the right to expose someone else’s child to sexual material without their consent. There is an Arkansas State law that requires a school to inform a parent when a child will be given instruction on things of a sexual manner.

Every child will process this information differently. Many children will become confused and anxious after being confronted with this offensive, sexual and deviant incestuous relationship. For some children, this book could be life altering. They will be stimulated by the passages but will feel guilt and disgust for doing so- Many will feel the same emotions this abused child felt which is stated in several passages.. "..feel the hot sauce hot cha cha feeling when he be fucking me.. get.. confuse. I HATE him. But my pussy be popping. He say.. Big Mama your pussy is popping! I HATE myself when I feel good." Harold Voth, who is on the faculty of the Karl Menninger School of Psychiatry in Topeka, Kansas, states, “there are millions of people who appear manifestly healthy, but who also harbor substantial latent sicknesses which are residues of developmental arrests or abnormal development which may find expression in sexual perversions. Thus, viewing pornography, most of which depicts perverse behavior, activates the developmental sexual arrests which exist in millions of people”... Dr. Voth sees such exposure as especially damaging to the young who are on the threshold of entering into an active sexual life. For them, these vital processes should be guided toward greater maturity, not retrogressively toward perversion or transient, meaningless sex. As he states, "Society and individuals alike can only be harmed when we legitimize abnormal behavior."
Other children will find the book extremely depressing and sad - to learn that this type of behavior exists. Information on incestuous relationships and child molestation should be handled by adults, preferably parents, and explained in a clinical way rather than presented in raw gutter language like in this book. At the very least, parents should know their child was reading about such subjects and have the opportunity to discuss it with them. This adult, being 38 years old, has never had to confront such horrid thoughts as the detailed scene in the book with the threesome sex including a baby in Pampers. I had just soon gone to my grave without confronting it.
Again the law doesn't even allow sex education without parental consent. This book is notsex education - but education in all the unhealthy, deviant ways.

We also have a great deal of information gained from studies treating sex offenders, suggesting that pornography is often used by them as a facilitator or "training manual" in not only acquiring their own deviation but also as a device to break down the resistance and inhibitions of their victims or targets of molestation--especially when these are children or juveniles. (32)
Bob Peters and Bob Navarro of the Los Angeles Police Department's Administrative Vice Division cite an in-house study of every child molestation case referred to them during a 10-year-period which found, in 60% of the instances, adult or child pornography was used to lower the inhibitions of the children molested or to excite or sexually arouse the perpetrator of the abuse.
In another study of 43 pedophiles, they found adult or child pornography was (magazines, photos or videos) involved in 100% of the cases investigated. In every interview they conducted, the officers reported the abusers repeatedly saying the same thing: "I used this stuff to stimulate the child, to break down his inhibitions.”

I have attached a very detailed article linking the use of this type material by pedophiles to entice, desensitize and normalize sex with children.

I have communicated with the superintendent and the school board on several levels.
Sending emails and making phone calls repeatedly requesting direction and feedback, this has been inadequately handled. I have attended school board meetings, the most recent without any response. I have initiated a petition with several hundred signatures which the district not recognized.

The points in this complaint form are not exhaustive by any means. If you need further information please don’t hesitate to ask.

I am once again beseeching you to immediately restrict access to students without parental consent and initiate an audit of our library system to identify this type material, and establish guidelines for future selections.
Also attached and linked is information regarding the removal, not restriction, of one of these books in NY City from 371 schools. “Department spokeswoman Margie Feinberg said the sexual primer was mistakenly put on the list of suggested classroom library books and was delivered to schools. But she emphasized that the book was ordered removed before classes started last month because it was deemed inappropriate for adolescents to read.”

The State of Oklahoma is passing legislation on this very issue. “House Resolution 1039, by State Rep. Sally Kern , calls on Oklahoma libraries to “confine homosexually themed books and other age-inappropriate material to areas exclusively for adult access and distribution.”

http://www.lsb.state.ok.us/house/news7551.html

http://www.alabamapolicy.org/GTI/GTI-internet-5.html



At least 14 states allow disclosure of materials checked out to custodial parents or guardians so the Supreme Court could not have ruled against this.


Alabama
Alaska
Colorado
Florida
Louisiana
Hawaii
Kansas
New Mexico
Ohio
South Dakota
Utah
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

This can be done. It is not only legal it is right!


Item #2  I am formally requesting this item be put on the agenda for Aug 25th, 2005

 I received the following letter dated Aug 9th from Dr. New:

Dear Ms. Taylor:

On August 2, 2005 I received your Patron’s Request for Reconsideration of a Work for the book entitled Push. I will designate a Materials Evaluation Committee per Board Policy No 61631.1 Section C.

The committee will be provided a copy of your patron request form Appendix A of Board Policy No. 6163.1 No later than two weeks after the committee has completed their evaluation, you will receive a copy of their recommendations.

Section III. D. if Board Policy No 6163.1 requires that “no material shall be removed from use until the Materials Evaluation Committee has made a final decision.” Therefore, the book Push will remain in general circulation at the high school library.

Thank you for your interest in the library collection of Fayetteville Public Schools.

Bobby C New
Superintendent

As implied in the letter, as of Aug 9th, no Materials Eval. Committie had been formed and the time period that is specifically stated in the policy, within two weeks, is not being adhered to.  The policy expressly details the procedure saying that all steps will be completed within two weeks upon receipt of form.  I am requesting that the board address this issue immediately and require a response in compliance to the time line of this policy


Item #3    I am formally requesting this item be placed on the agenda for Aug 25th, 2005

I received a letter from Dr. New concerning my Reconsideration form for the book Deal with it! A whole New approach to your body, brain and life as a gurl stating “at this time, the district does not have the resources available to consider additional request. There for it is my decision not to process the above mentioned reconsideration of a work.” 
The policy 6163.1 has no provision in it, that I can find, that would allow for this delay. The district was well aware of my intent to file numerous reconsideration forms. Dr. New himself stated that the current procedure would not be effective, the district should have been prepared for this task.  I waited nearly 2 months for an alternative procedure to no avail. I want to address this issue before the board to ask them to resolve this usurping of the policy that I have been required to follow.

Item #4   I am formally requesting this item to be placed on the agenda for the Aug 25th,2005
 
In Dr. News’s letter concerning my Patron Complaint form he stated “Due to the seriousness of your repeated inquiries, I no longer feel it appropriate to respond to you via email.  Furthermore, as we move forward, I will only accept written correspondence from you.”  Is the district now setting a policy to refuse emails correspondence from any patron/citizen? If not I would consider this to be discriminatory action. I am requesting that the board address this issue and set the policy straight on means of correspondence.


God's Speed

Laurie Taylor


"All that's necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."  - Edmund Burke

# posted by Pat Lynch : 4:40 AM