Oklahoma’s education board has revoked the license of a former teacher who drew national attention during surging book-ban efforts across the U.S. in 2022 when she covered part of her classroom bookshelf in red tape with the words “Books the state didn’t want you to read.”
The decision Thursday went against a judge who had advised the Oklahoma Board of Education not to revoke the license of Summer Boismier, who had also put in her high school classroom a QR code of the Brooklyn Public Library’s catalogue of banned books.
An attorney for Boismier, who now works at the Brooklyn Public Library in New York City, told reporters after the board meeting that they would seek to overturn the decision.
Chasing away your teachers is a great way to make sure your state stays at the bottom of every US state comparison table, so great job.
… is a great way make an uneducated population for the benefit of the next authoritarian ruler
Yes. Failing the populace is not a side-effect, it’s the point.
What fun is it being the king of an unhappy, sickly, unemployable mob of peasants? Your dictatorship will not last a month.
Quite the contrary. An uneducated population is easier to fool and to control. And uneducated != unemployable.
The ditches don’t dig themselves! The hogs don’t clean their own mess. The stamping machine only severs an arm at a time, so get up there and run the stamper with your good arm, Billy!
Hatred and entitlement aren’t logical.
Chasing away public school teachers on our way to privatizing schools is a goal of theirs so yeah mission accomplished
Oklahoma imports it’s high education labor from neighboring Nebraska and Texas, then keeps the locals ignorant and pliable for the cheap local labor
I’m wondering what percentage of high education labor is military veterans who utilized their GI bill to get a better education, Tinker AFB ain’t small. Huge military populations for Texas too, and there’s a history of dumping retirees out the gate and saying “good luck!”.
Oklahoma University and OSU both have big out of state populations, too.
neighboring Nebraska
Kansas: “Am I a joke to you?”
Yes. Kansas is a joke
Hey, at least they were able to protect abortion access via direct ballot voting.
Their education system doesn’t care. They want 1 of 2 things. Easy to control and submissive teachers, or they want to completely tear down the system and build a private one.
… With authoritarian hierarchy and submissive teachers.
Thank you, Summer Boismier, for standing up for what is right and being a true patriot.
they should revoke the license of the board and ban them from getting anywhere within 500m of an educational institution
Within 500m of children.
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https://apnews.com/article/oklahoma-teacher-banned-books-2615726cd3e3eb7b04614ea969250f0e
An attorney for Boismier, who now works at the Brooklyn Public Library in New York City
I am assuming and hoping they are talking about the teacher getting a job there. That’s fucking awesome if so
Yeah, she got the fuck out of dodge like two years ago. This case has been dragging on for a long time - OSDE has done shady shit like change the meeting time when they saw KFOR reporters there.
I’m hoping the same, that’s quite the story in and of itself.
Right? I couldn’t believe no one had brought it up
I thought they meant the attorney.
The first line of the article calls her “a former teacher” so I took it to mean she was the one working at the NY library.
Edit to add …
Boismier lost her job after she gave students a QR code to the Brooklyn Public Library’s Books Unbanned project. Now she’s in charge of teen initiatives at the library, and will be part of its Freedom to Read Advocacy Institute with PEN America. The free, online four-week training program will teach high school students to combat book banning in their schools and libraries. Source
Well, it sounds like the attorney has a job still, and it probably pays a little better too, so I assume so.
So the banned book is available in the public library? Some ban that is.
Well, in the public library in NYC, not Oklahoma.
NYPL doesn’t care what books are banned in Oklahoma schools.
Small detail, New York City has three public library Systems (New York, Queens, and Brooklyn). While all three have Banned Books events, BPL specifically (in conjunction with Boston Public Library, LA County Library, San Diego Library and Seattle Public Library) runs a service called Books Unbanned that is said to offer a full collection of Banned Books (I believe NYPL and QPL’s banned collections are curated/limited) to essentially any US resident (Many libraries have residency requirements although I believe NYPL and QPL have waived those [when I was kid you had to bring a piece of mail in NYC to get a card]).
Brooklyn is in New York. Also, actual book bans are unconstitutional under the first amendment. What these laws do is prohibit state funded entities like public schools and public libraries in the state from having the books available. The books are still available in privately owned places.
Except you lose your teaching license if you tell students that, soooo…
Is there a list of libraries who offer a digital library card? (Forgot what’s our called I think it of state library card)
thought experiment:
if everyone in oklahoma ceased to exist, would the world be a better place?
No, this teacher is in Oklahoma and she is trying to make the world a better place
Where do I buy that shirt? It’s awesome!
I went looking for it but since the pic is from 2022 I can’t find it anywhere. :(
Thanks. I found the bookstore and book seller, but the t-shirt isn’t on any of their sites.
I should have been clearer in my post.
https://shop.bklynlibrary.org/products/books-unbanned-qr-tee-black
Looks like it’s print on demand so they aren’t paying to house a large warehouse of stock.
While it may show words and a QR code with the same message, that one is not something I’d pay for or wear due to the different style. Thanks for the link though.
Okay, now I want that first T-shirt, too!
(Pics copied for reference)
First one has that 60s Lounge Rock font. 👍🏻
PraegerU content? Totally fine.
Books kids actually want to read? Verboten.
I dunno, this penis Prager guy seems pretty cool
its very telling that they want children to not only not have access to these materials, but not know they they are be prevented from seeing those materials.
kind of horrifying… very weird ,cult-like behavior from conservatives.
Right? This is some legitimate dystopian shit.
It is called the bible belt and as a gay man that grew up there, let me tell you, it is some scary shit. Thanks to the people there still fighting the good fight.
Brainwashing
Also its highly likely that all these children have access to the internet anyways and can access all of it and much more.
How regressive and backwards and detrimental to humanity you have to be to get mad at a teacher for distributing educational material.
Religious conservative levels
Badlahoma things. What to expect from a state that extolled the virtues of oil industry for primary school children but forbids teaching about climate change?
Teacher will eventually get a fat, taxpayer-funded lawsuit award. The republicans are such backwards, self-hating, broken people.
How hard would it be for another state, that isn’t so dedicated to shooting its own foot, reinstate/award them a teaching license as a gesture?
Generally? Well within the executive power / administrative law of any given state as noted by BlueFalcon below.
Practically? I’d expect it to be quite a struggle. For licensed professions in general (doctors, real estate, insurance, hairdressers, etc.) most or all states ask a question to the effect of “Has your license for profession ever been suspended or revoked in any other state?”. It may or may not be an automatic disqualifier, but even if not it’s an uphill battle.
It prevents the real estate agent who stole someone’s earnest money from upping stakes to the next state and getting licensed, but since the standards for suspending/revoking licenses vary widely by state I lean towards believing that perhaps it should be a factor, and perhaps the state board of profession should meet to review the application, but previous disciplinary action in some other state is in no way an absolute statement about someone’s fitness to practice in their chosen field.
For teachers in that state it would be pretty easy since it’s a compact state. I would recommend Oregon or Washington.
For 3 seconds or so I was confused, wondering why Oregon or Washington would be considered particularly small or dense
She got a go fund me for moving expenses?
