Cheryl Lynn Allen: Media smears and the real fight for our kids’ minds

It’s become a familiar pattern: concerned parents speak up at school board meetings, asking their district to put in place age-appropriate standards regarding sexually explicit books in their child’s school library. In response, left-leaning media outlets cry “book banning.” Democratic lawmakers wring their hands about “censorship.” And activists who support explicit sexualized content in schools accuse moms and dads of bigotry or extremism.

This entire narrative is not only dishonest — it’s dangerous. It’s a calculated attempt to intimidate parents and teachers into silence and scare schools out of exercising their rightful authority to safeguard what gets put in front of children.

I was a second grade teacher, teaching in public schools. I became an Allegheny County judge in the juvenile courts, and then a Pennsylvania Superior Court judge. And I am a mother and grandmother. Take it from me: school boards have the legal right — and moral duty — to set age-appropriate standards for what belongs in school libraries and curriculum. Yet you wouldn’t know that from reading some media coverage. 

Take a recent smear piece from a biased online news outlet, for example, which falsely described a Pennsylvania district’s efforts to develop a library policy as being driven by a “far-right school board majority” supposedly threatening to ban Shakespeare. No mention was made of the actual content that concerned parents — sexually explicit depictions found in books marketed to children, nor of the district’s legal right to set age-appropriate standards. Instead, the article smeared the board and local parents while parroting ideological talking points that dismissed any effort at reasonable policy-making as ‘book banning’ for what belongs in school libraries and children’s curriculum. 

No parent expects their child’s public education to include graphic descriptions of sex acts. Yet when communities push back against such content, they’re falsely accused of “banning books.”

School districts are not obligated to purchase or promote every book under the sun. Refusing to stock a book in a school library — especially one that includes sexually explicit scenes — is not the same as banning it. Parents are still free to buy the book, students can read it on their own time, and no one is storming bookstores with pitchforks. What’s really happening is something much more reasonable: schools are making choices, as they always have, about what fits in a limited educational space.

And space is, in fact, limited. Every book with sexually explicit content added to a curriculum or a library displaces another book with great literary value that does not contain explicit content. School boards are well within their rights to prioritize equally valuable alternatives that don’t subject kids to age-inappropriate content.

The standard for inclusion should not be “keep it on the shelf as long as we won’t go to jail for it.” Obscenity laws set a floor, not a ceiling, for what is appropriate for minors in schools. If our only benchmark is criminal liability, we’ve abandoned our duty to educate children with excellence and care. Unfortunately, schools with no written standards often default to the “keep it in as long as it isn’t criminal to give it to a minor” standard.

Ironically, the absence of clear policies around sexually explicit material doesn’t protect schools from liability — it exposes schools to costly legal battles. A librarian or administrator who removes a questionable title without guidance risks being falsely accused of viewpoint discrimination. But a written policy with clear standards, differentiated by age group, empowers and protects school employees, insulates against baseless accusations, and — most importantly — protects students.

Critics often claim these policies target LGBT content. That, too, is a lie. Age-appropriate policies regarding sexually explicit content apply equally, whether the book depicts a heterosexual, homosexual, or even solitary act. The concern is not with who is involved in the explicit content, but that it’s explicit at all. Sexually graphic material doesn’t become suitable for children simply because it checks a diversity box. Plus, same-sex couples are not monolithic. Plenty of same-sex couples agree that minors shouldn’t be exposed to sexually explicit content. 

As Mark Hemingway recently wrote in The Federalist, “But this is not about local libraries providing resources for gay people in the community. This is once again about kids. If ordinary people know anything at all about the American Library Association (ALA), it’s because of their annual list of the ‘Top 10 Most Challenged Books’ and the corresponding celebration of ‘Banned Books Week.’ Of course, when you get down to brass tacks, even the ALA concedes there’s no actual book banning in America, which is why they make a list of ‘challenged,’ rather than banned books. Every book on the list has explicit sexual content, with the list being heavy on LGBT themes, and every book on the list is specifically aimed at kids.”

Let’s stop pretending that this is about silencing ideas. It’s about providing the best possible resources in schools and protecting the healthy development of children.

When a parent restricts their child from watching an R-rated movie, no one accuses them of being “anti-art.” Yet when that same parent questions whether an eleven-year-old should be reading a graphic novel with detailed sexual content paid for and provided by the public school, they’re labeled a bigot or a “book banner.”

This rhetorical gaslighting is meant to confuse voters, discredit legitimate concerns, and shift the Overton Window of what we consider acceptable in children’s education. It’s working — unless we push back.

The truth is, parents and school boards are not erasing ideas or censoring history. They are drawing lines where lines need to be drawn, with public input. In an age where radical ideologues want to blur every boundary related to sex, we need more, not fewer, people willing to stand up and say, “leave the children alone.”

We should encourage, not condemn, schools that take the time to craft thoughtful, written standards about sexually explicit material. These policies serve students, educators, and parents. They ensure that the finite time in a school day and the limited space on library shelves are filled with content that educates.

To be sure, some opponents of these policies will insist they have noble motives. They’ll claim to be protecting free speech or exploration. But such vague appeals fall apart as soon as one realizes that not even the news media can show the graphic pictures and parents aren’t allowed to read the explicit passages at school board meetings. 

Stewarding the minds of the next generation is a sacred trust. Schools exist to nurture that responsibility, not to compete with the internet for shock value. Parents are not the problem. They, the school boards they elect, and the teachers they hire, are the frontline defense against a culture that often seems more interested in pushing sexual content in front of children earlier and earlier rather than teaching them to read, write, and think critically.

We can — and must — do better. Let’s get back to focusing on academics. That starts by rejecting the false choice between “book banning” and cultural capitulation. Age-appropriate standards are not censorship. They are common sense, good education policy, and good parenting.

And it’s time we treated them that way.

Judge (ret) Cheryl Lynn Allen served as the first Black woman on the Pennsylvania Superior Court and previously served on the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas. She served as a trial judge in both Family and Criminal Court until her election to the Pennsylvania Superior Court in 2007. She is currently Of Counsel with the Pennsylvania Family Council and the Independence Law Center.