Kansas Bill Proposes Easy Prosecution of Educators

The Kansas Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a bill that would prosecute teachers, librarians, and school administrators for providing materials “harmful to minors.” It was introduced in reaction to a sex poster on a middle-school classroom door. The bill’s definition is as follows:

(A) The average adult person applying contemporary community standards would find that the material or performance has a predominant tendency to appeal to a prurient interest in sex to minors;

(B) the average adult person applying contemporary community standards would find that the material or performance depicts or describes nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement or sadomasochistic abuse in a manner that is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community with respect to what is suitable for minors; and

(C) a reasonable person would find that the material or performance lacks serious literary, scientific, educational, artistic or political value for minors.

Even if educators aren’t actually prosecuted, such a law would result in a great deal of self-censorship on their part. Like a previous bill allowing discrimination against the LGBT community in the name of religious freedom, this bill has been sent back to committee—possibly to die—but both these can always re-emerge later when lawmakers think that they are safe from national censure.

 

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