(USNewsMag.com) – The Biden administration is moving to use the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights as a way to fight back against parents who seek to remove controversial books from school libraries.
A June memo from the White House says that school districts will be informed that a racially and sexually hostile environment can be created by reviewing and removing books that are challenged by parents, which would be in violation of federal law. Schools must follow federal law as a condition of receiving funding.
A district can be investigated by the Department of Education for reviewing a book challenged by a parent for questionable content, according to American Enterprise Institute research fellow Max Eden. Eden stated the administration is “leveraging” the Department of Education to promote the left’s “cultural agenda.”
An investigation was launched by the Office of Civil Rights into Forsyth County Schools in Georgia after it reviewed content challenged by parents as inappropriate. The Office of Civil Rights investigated whether the process violated the Civil Rights Act. The investigation concluded that by reviewing the content, which parents said had pornographic content, the Forsyth County Public Schools had created a racially and sexually hostile environment for students. The district settled with the Office of Civil Rights.
The June announcement from the White House about training districts on the threat book bans supposedly place on “the civil rights of students” comes one month after the conclusion of the Forsyth County Public Schools investigation.
According to the Biden administration, the focus on books by the Office of Civil Rights is meant to foster “inclusion” for the LGBTQ community.
The move comes after the Biden administration faced backlash regarding Attorney General Merrick Garland’s “domestic terrorist” memorandum. This memo treated parents who spoke out against critical race theory at school board meetings as some kind of threat. The memo instructed the FBI to work to address the “threats” against school board members with state and local leaders.
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