Teacher Autonomy and Parent Rights in the Incorporation of LGBTQ+ Studies in K–12 Education*

By Ricardo Phipps

Recent resistance to teaching students about the history of racial power and privilege dynamics in the United States has been accompanied by a parallel resistance to LGBTQ+ studies and resources in K–12 classrooms, libraries, and extracurricular spaces. Parents and politicians in two particular states have launched recent, highly politicized efforts to block exposure to LGBTQ+ culture through K–12 library book holdings and classroom reading curricula. Texas and Virginia have been the sites of heated arguments over the benefits and the dangers of students reading books with significant LGBTQ+ themes. Demands have been made of school boards in both states to forbid school libraries from circulating LGBTQ+ themed books. In 2021, a Texas state legislator, Matt Krause of Fort Worth, compiled a list of 850 books that he deemed in need of investigation because of sexuality- or racism-themed content that he found concerning for K–12 consumption.1 Framing the reading of LGBTQ+ themed books in K–12 as an issue of morality, Governor Greg Abbott2 insisted that the state’s education agency “investigate any criminal activity in our public schools involving the availability of pornography,” which has librarians worried that their book choices could be criminalized.

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