A concerned parent in South Carolina reportedly expressed his frustration with a local public school district by throwing bags of chicken feed at school board members.
David Cook had been trying to urge Beaufort County School District to pull school library books that he said are too “sexually explicit” from campus shelves.
“I’ve appealed to you all repeatedly, and only a few of you have recognized we do not need to keep sexually explicit books in our schools,” Cook said at a June 27 school board meeting, Fox News reported.
Cook proceeded to reach into a backpack and pull out bags of chicken feed, which he then threw at the board members seated at the dais in front of him.
“There’s your chicken feed. I give you this gift as a way to demonstrate mine and many others’ opinion of your lack of action. Chicken. Too afraid. Matter of fact, your behavior gives chicken a bad name,” Cook said, according to Fox News.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, public school systems across North Texas also saw contentious board meetings regarding which library materials were or were not appropriate for minors. At Dallas ISD, a number of books were identified by concerned parents as “pornographic,” leading to regular protests at district board of trustees meetings.
Two books at the center of the chicken feed incident — Flamer by Mike Curato and All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto by George M. Johnson — are currently available for Dallas ISD students to access.
“A few weeks ago I referred to a study on the impact of pornography on children published by the American College of Pediatricians from June of 2016. Please read it. The scientific study is proof of the negative impact of pornography on children. Use it to justify recalling any books that you’ve sent back into our libraries. It is within your power to refer to the study,” Cook told members of his local school board.
Still, opponents of rigorous screening of school library books suggest that the notion of “pornographic” or “obscene” books being made available to students is overblown.
“Every claim I’ve seen that a book is legally obscene is completely frivolous. The bar for legal obscenity is very high. It isn’t met by speech that merely references sex, especially if the speech is part of a literary work,” said Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, in a previous statement to The Dallas Express.
