Media attacks have a chilling effect on moms who challenge sexually explicit books

OPINION

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

Articles recently published at WUFT (part of the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida) seem designed to discourage parents from taking advantage of Florida’s laws that allow them to challenge sexually-explicit books that are available in school libraries.

Instead of focusing on whether the challenged book contains prohibited material, student reporter Lauren Brensel’s November 17 article at WUFT focused on where the parent, Lauren DePaola, lives, and although the article acknowledged that the book “includes references to masturbation and sex, including a scene about one of [the author’s] fantasies with illustrations of two naked males engaging in sexual relations,” Brensel devotes the bulk of her article to uncovering DePaola’s voter registration, residence, and court history; it seems particularly important to Brensel that the reader knows that DePaola is a Republican.

Brensel named the members of the Eastside High School Library Advisory Council–which voted to remove the book challenged by DePaola–but did not provide readers with their voter registrations or court histories. 

Similarly, in her article about another successful book challenge, Brensel gave readers the name, age, job title (specifically noting that the challenger works at the University of Florida), education, and voting registration of the parent who submitted the complaint; and yes, that parent was also revealed to be a Republican. In that case, the principal of the school removed the book after overriding the Gainesville High School Library Advisory Council, but Brensel did not name or investigate any of those participants in the process; she also didn’t provide the voter registrations of any of these participants in the process.

Different standard for Democrats?

However, Brensel took a different tack in her article, “Alachua County School Board investigating club allegedly limited to Black male students.” That article discussed a complaint filed by a parent of a Gainesville High School student, and the complaint led to significant public comment at the September 19 School Board meeting, but Brensel did not think that even the name of that parent was important, much less her political party. Could that be because the parent is a campaign consultant for prominent local Democrat campaigns? Is it only newsworthy when a parent bringing a complaint is a Republican?

Brensel’s objection to DePaola’s complaint was focused on whether DePaola has been a resident of Alachua County for the past year. I obtained an email, dated three weeks before the Library Advisory Council met, in which Eastside Principal Larry Williams told DePaola, “The current address you previously mentioned has been confirmed.” Brensel could have requested and obtained the same record, although she might have needed to wait a few days to publish her article.

Brensel told her readers about DePaola’s voter registration, voting record, fishing licenses, a speeding ticket (and the fact that she attended driving school), her occupation, the value of other properties she and her husband own, and the value of her previous home. Given the determination by the school district that DePaola had standing to bring the book challenge, this all seems to be a transparent attempt to discourage other parents from entering this process.

The differences in the treatment of these parents, based solely on the party registration of the parent, is quite striking and is clearly designed to warn other parents about the repercussions of participating in processes created by school districts. These parents are not engaging in any illegal or unethical acts; they are questioning books in the belief that the books violate the prohibition on explicit sexual activity found in Florida statutes. These parents have no power to remove books from school libraries; that is done by school district personnel, but those decisions are glossed over in the effort to vilify the parents.

I reached out to Brensel for comment but instead received an unsigned email with a link to new Editor’s Notes on Brensel’s articles about book challenges and was told that the notes represent WUFT’s response to my questions to Brensel.

Here is the entire Editor’s Note on the article about DePaola’s challenge–note that it admits the district determined that passages in the book “run afoul of a Florida law that prohibits classroom material to depict or describe sexual conduct” but still focuses on DePaola’s residence and voter registration:

Why we reported this story the way we did

This news article covers the Alachua County Public Schools’ removal of an LGBTQ title from the Eastside High School library. The story explains why the book was removed and describes passages from the book that the district determined run afoul of a Florida law that prohibits classroom material to depict or describe sexual conduct.

The article also noted that the school district, despite its own efforts, had been unable to confirm that Lauren DePaola, the complainant, was a resident of Alachua County, as required under the district’s own rules for such challenges, and our reporting separately failed to show conclusively that she met that requirement, which made public information about her an important element of this coverage.

The news that Ms. DePaola is a registered Republican who submitted the challenge is relevant because the process in Florida for challenging books in public schools – even in a predominantly Democratic county – has been championed as a conservative cause by Republicans in Tallahassee.

Our news reporting on the subject of people challenging books they believe are inappropriate or illegal for public schools has included newsworthy information about the content of the disputed material, the process for adjudicating such challenges and – whenever it has been relevant – public information about the residents who have initiated these policy discussions by filing formal complaints. When people do newsworthy things, we write about them. Our coverage has been professional and objective and meets the highest industry standards for informing our readers about important issues in the community.

The other Editor’s Note is similar and can be found here. 

“A challenger does thrust oneself into the public forum”

Harrison Hove, Interim Director of the Innovation News Center at the University of Florida, who said he supervises Brensel, separately sent me an email saying that two faculty editors worked with her and that her work was then “vetted by a WUFT editor.” He defended the investigation of DePaola because “a challenge is a public record. As this is a ‘controversial process.’ a challenger does thrust oneself into the public forum.”

I would argue that the process is “controversial” mainly because media outlets have made it controversial by investigating conservative parents who bring challenges – and the law that allows parents to challenge books can be used by any parent who believes materials in a school library are inappropriate; it does not only apply to reasons that would be given by a conservative parent. It also seems that Hove and WUFT’s editors believe that only Republicans could possibly object to sexually explicit material in books that are available to minors, although the requirement that instructional materials be “free of pornography” was pre-existing in Florida statutes.

WARNING – GRAPHIC SEXUAL CONTENT: Click here to see pages from Gender Queer.

Book challenges could be treated the same way the parent complaint about the GAIN Club at GHS was treated. Brensel did not dig through the Facebook posts or court history of that parent; her name, although available through public records requests, was also kept out of articles in multiple media outlets, not just WUFT. So the editor’s note–“When people do newsworthy things, we write about them”–apparently did not apply to the GHS mom who initiated the complaint about the GAIN Club, although the article written about the incident would seem to indicate that WUFT found the mom “newsworthy.”

I’m disappointed that WUFT is allowing their student reporters to investigate members of the community who are not in public roles and who have not done anything wrong. The Society of Professional Journalists advises journalists to “Realize that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than public figures and others who seek power, influence or attention. Weigh the consequences of publishing or broadcasting personal information” and “Recognize that legal access to information differs from an ethical justification to publish or broadcast.” 

Parents who participate in processes for vetting library or instructional materials do not become public figures by submitting a book challenge form. Yes, the information is public, but that doesn’t lead automatically to a need to publish their names and certainly doesn’t justify investigations into their properties, businesses, court histories, and voting records. 

If you want an example of how this process can be written about without investigating voter registrations, here is our article on DePaola’s book challenge.

Obviously, nothing I write here will change the course of modern journalism, which is often more about activism than information, but I can at least let you, my readers, know what to watch for when you see articles that are obviously designed to attack private citizens who dare to participate in a public process while registered as Republicans.

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Note: DePaola has challenged two more books on the grounds that they are sexually explicit, and instead of looking into whether these books are appropriate, Alachua County Public Schools sent her a letter today, stating that they have determined she does not have a student enrolled in the district and has not lived in Alachua County for a year (she is currently renting a home in Alachua County after moving from Gilchrist County) and is thus not qualified to bring book challenges. Although the definition of “resident” in Florida Statutes 1006.28 includes “has maintained his or her residence in this state for the preceding year,” there are additional means of establishing residence in that section.