Rhonda Thurman Says State Legislature Likely To Weigh In On Obscenity In School Books Issue

  • Monday, March 14, 2022

Rhonda Thurman, county school board member who led a special committee called to deal with the appropriateness of school library books, said the Legislature may weigh heavily on the issue.

She said a bill is moving through the General Assembly that would take out a current obscenity exemption for the schools.

She said, "The school board is going to be held responsible for some of these books that do meet the definition of obscenity."

Board member Jenny Hill said she watched all three of the committee's meetings online, "and I did not see any consensus gained." She said, "What we need is a practical path so that parents control what their children read, but not what other children read."

Ms. Thurman replied, "I knew at the first meeting that we were not going to come to a consensus. I've worked with women for 47 years. Some of the women just wanted to take over the meeting and stomp their feet until they got their way."

However, she said, "I think we got a lot of good input."

She said, "This is not banning books. If some of these books do not meet community standards of decency, somebody is going to have to answer."

Ms. Thurman said school board attorney Scott Bennett stated that the policies had been there all along and "if the administration had followed the policies these books would not be in the libraries."

She said attorney Bennett was drawing up a revised policy.

Board member James Walker said one issue is that when board members were each naming two persons to the panel "some people picked people who would not represent the community, but would represent them."

Chairman Tucker McClendon said there would not be a vote on the issue on Thursday. He said the board would await the new policy, then assign the matter to the Policy Committee of the board.

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