By Gretchen Garrity
In
August, education reporter Claudette Riley of the Springfield
News-Leader, teased her readers with a tweet from X (formerly Twitter)
about some local students who had "reached out" to her.
Nixa student group pushes "banned" books
Met tonight with a group of high school students for an upcoming story. They were articulate, passionate and interesting. So happy they reached out. pic.twitter.com/8LpQLrTCHB
— Claudette Riley (@CRileyNL) August 15, 2023
Back in June 2023, after months of citizen interface with the Nixa School Board about sexually explicit and pornographic books available to students, the school board voted to remove four books from the school library. Later, another book was retained.
Groups like U-Turn in Education, positively featured by Riley in an October 2022 article, have been active in working to prevent the removal of obscene and pornographic books from school and public libraries. In fact, U-Turn is heavily involved in the student group featured in Riley's article.
The teaser tweet finally came to fruition Sept. 27 in an article titled 'It's not their library.' Nixa High School students form group to fight book ban attempts.'
'It's not their library.' Nixa High School students form group to fight future book ban attempts from parents, community members. https://t.co/AK0Dfb2LfY via @springfieldNL @nixaschools @PENamerica #BannedBooksWeek
— Claudette Riley (@CRileyNL) September 27, 2023
According to the article, a group of little Lord and Lady Fauntleroys has been fighting valiantly against devilish parents that are attempting to keep literature out of their hearts and minds. The students are described as "calm" and "reasonable" while adults called the school board "names and made ugly comments leveled at students, other adults and high school librarians."
(As an aside, Nixa School Board President Josh Roberts may want to clarify his comments. He is surely not aware of everything that goes on in the school board meetings, since he sits apart from citizens.)
Nixa student group links to Marxist bookstore
This type of accusation is a common tactic of the Left, and has been in play in articles about our local area for months now. In several articles, children are being put on the front lines of the battle for parental rights. It can't be about smut in our schools. It can't be about protecting children or letting parents decide what books their children will be exposed to. It has to be about mean adults taking away a child's right to read.
See here and here and here. Once you see the tactics, you can't unsee it. The latest article in the News-Leader is ramping up the narrative.
Thankfully, few citizens are buying what they're selling. And if you want to find out what U-Turn in Education thinks about parent rights, go here to see how they subvert them.
U-Turn in Education linked from Nixa student group
In fact, at least one of the four founding members of the student group, Nixa Students Against Book Restrictions, has parents involved in U-Turn. And U-Turn is linked at the top of the SABR Instagram page.
For some intelligent commentary about the article, Nick Reed featured it on his show The Nick Reed Podcast on 104.1 KSGF. And for a little humor:
@right2winozarks ♬ Funny - Gold-Tiger
