Slide 6 of 11

Here is another example.

Deviant Sex obviously violates the Policies 1710, 2311, 3200 which guarantees the parent that the school is attempting to help his student grow into a healthy attitude which will give him the satisfaction of living a life as a contributing citizen. The sex protrayed in these books is not healthy and the attitude about sex in these books will not lead to satisfaction. Policy 2331 guarantees that students will cover all sides of a controversial topic with thoroughness and objectivity.Yet these six books present only the deviant side never the normal side of sex. There are no STD’s; there are only diaphragms that prevent pregnancies and never fail. These books are filled with broken, dysfunctional sexual relationships and are void of healthy comparisons. (See excerpts of District Policies and District Curricula)

But let me speak to Policy 8700 because it eliminates at least those books with explicit sex in them. This is our policy on sexual harassment and actually defines it very carefully as: (See excerpts of District Policies and District Curricula)

“Making unwelcome, or offensive or inappropriate sexually suggestive remarks, comments, gestures or jokes; or remarks of a sexual nature about a person’s appearance, gender or conduct.” This next quote from The Handmaid’s Tale is a good example of an offensive, inappropriate remark! “Men are sex machines, said Aunt Lydia, and not much more. They only want one thing. You must learn to manipulate them, for your own good. Lead them around by the nose; that is a metaphor. It’s nature’s way. It’s God’s device. It’s the way things are.”

The policy goes on to define sexual harassment, “Using derogatory sexual terms for a person.” That would be like In the Lake in the Woods where he calls his father the “f-worder” or in Sometimes a Great Notion when women’s body parts receive the most crude and vulgar references.

In fact the policy says that harassment includes “communication that has the effect of substantially interfering with an individual’s educational performance, or of creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive educational environment.” This would certainly describe my own student’s report of a classroom too embarrassed to make eye contact with fellow students while they were reading The Handmaid’s Tale. These students were so embarrassed by their situation that when I contacted five of the almost twenty parents of the students in that class, not one parent knew or had discussed what their student was reading at the time. One student was even found with his textbook tucked inside another book so that the title on the cover would not show. If a student is in this situation or has to ask his teacher to be excused from this situation, he has been placed in an intimidating and offensive educational environment.