COBB COUNTY, Ga. — A national non-profit organization is taking aim at Cobb County Schools over the district's decision to remove certain books from school libraries.
The National Women's Law Center is who specifically filed the civil rights complaint, accusing the district of "creating a hostile environment for students through practices that include censoring books and learning materials that feature, tell the stories of, or are written by LGBTQIA+ people and people of color."
As recently as last month, Cobb County schools removed these four books from its library system:
- "It Ends with Us"
- "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"
- "Lucky"
- "Thirteen Reasons Why"
The district cited lewd, vulgar, sexually explicit, and graphic content inappropriate for a public school in a statement released on Tuesday.
In response to the complaint, a spokesperson for the district said, "local political candidates repeating a made-up narrative doesn't make it true and protecting access to sexually explicit content for minors doesn't make it right."
The response marks the latest chapter in an ongoing back-and-forth between school officials.
"What we are doing is giving parents peace of mind in knowing their children will not have unrestricted access to this content while at school," Superintendent Chris Ragsdale previously said. "...What we are doing is refusing to force Cobb County taxpayers and educators to facilitate and advance the sexualization of children."
Critics of the book removals have cast them as "book bans" that stifle academic freedom and amount to censorship over certain ideas and concepts.
After the announcement of the first two book removals last year, Jeff Hubbard with the Cobb County Association of Educators told 11Alive that media specialists and teachers were "scared" to run afoul of district and state content standards. A teacher, Katie Rinderle, was fired for reading "My Shadow is Purple" in her Cobb County fifth grade class under Georgia's "divisive concepts" education law passed in 2022. Her firing was later upheld by the state Board of Education.
“Our teachers are scared. Our media specialists are scared," Hubbard said last year. "They’re literally throwing away hundreds of dollars worth of books and supplemental materials from their classroom because if just one parent comes up with a complaint – they can be in danger of losing their jobs."
In December, three Cobb County school administrators were affiliated with a hate group, according to a report in the online Cobb County Courier. The Southern Poverty Law Center said the Powder Springs-based group called for the death penalty for gays and lesbians.
In response, the Cobb Schools communication division sent 11Alive an email that didn’t address the connection between the employees and the anti-gay group, but called into question the motives of the reporter who conducted the investigation.
“It is a sad day when schools must take time away from students and teachers to comment on a freelance writer’s attempt to dox veteran teachers,” wrote a Cobb County schools spokesperson.
The group’s founder eventually texted 11Alive, “I do not speak to news outlets.”