A bill that would have forced teachers to get approval from parents before teaching contentious material was vetoed by Gov. McAuliffe this week.
A bill that would have forced teachers to get approval from parents before teaching contentious material was vetoed by Gov. McAuliffe this week.
HB 516 a bill that would have required parental consent on every book containing “sexually explicit” material in the classroom.
“This legislation lacks flexibility and would require the label of ‘sexually explicit’ to apply to an artistic work based on a single scene, without further context,” said McAuliffe in a press release. “Numerous educators, librarians, students, and others involved in the teaching process have expressed their concerns about the real-life consequences of this legislation’s requirements.”
Tori Otstot, president of the Virginia Association of Teachers of English was one of the educators who saw the bill as a detriment to the classroom.
“I could see it becoming so much trouble to get a book approved that eventually teachers would choose another text. Otstot said in an interview with RVA Mag. “Which could have significant ramifications in the classroom as far as exposing the student to quality literary and nonfiction text.”
Last month, a coalition of 9 organizations known as the The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) penned a letter urging McAuliffe to veto the bill.
“We believe that such legislation would prejudice educationally valuable content, undermine the quality of public education in Virginia, and contravene important First Amendment principles,” said the letter.
According to the Washington Post the bill started with a complaint from a woman in Fairfax County who was “horrified” at the content of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize winning novel Beloved that her son, a senior in high school, was assigner to read.
Written by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, the novel Beloved contains detailed counts of violence including gang rape and the murder of an infant.
In 2012, the book was one of the top ten most challenged in schools for the reasons of “sexual explicitness, religious viewpoint and violence” as reported by the ALA.
Advocates for the bill included the Richmond faith-based group The Family Foundation which called on its members to contact McAuliffe’s office in support of the bill.
“Contrary to the message of the fear mongers, the bill simply requires the Department of Education to develop a policy by which parents can review materials and opt-out their child out (they’d be assigned a different project) if parents find them too sexually explicit,” read a statement sent out before the bill was vetoed. “This would be a similar opt-out to what already exists for family life education, and even for students in science class who object to dissecting animals (signed into law by then Governor Mark Warner).”
Over the 2016 session, the bill passed 22 to 17 in the senate and passed unanimously with a block vote in the house.
For the governor’s veto to be overridden there must be a 2/3rds majority vote from both the House and Senate. For this to happen, the Senate would need at least 26 members to pass the bill on the following vote.
“Because the Board of Education is already considering this issue in a broader and more complete context, I believe House Bill 516 is unnecessary.” McAuliffe said.
