“Conservative furor over what is taught in public schools reached a fever pitch in Texas on Wednesday, as Republican Gov. Greg Abbott announced a criminal probe into what he called ‘pornography’ in school libraries, his third directive on the matter this month,” the AP reports.
“Abbott released two previous letters this month decrying the availability of ‘pornography’ in school libraries.”
Among the books cited as possibly pornographic are “Lawn Boy,” which refers to oral sex between boys, and “Losing the Girl,” which features LGBTQ characters.
Texas state lawmakers last summer banned public schools from teaching critical race theory, a decades-old academic theory taught on some college campuses. In addition to a call to remove books deemed pornographic, Texas conservatives have also moved to ban books that deal with race and gender. Since then, school board meetings have grown heated across the country, including the politically mixed suburbs of Texas’ largest cities, as conservative parents attempt to challenge and remove books they claim are critical race theory or obscene.
