Oklahoma revokes license of teacher who gave class QR code to Brooklyn library in book-ban protest

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Hat tip, a thread at Joe.My.God.

OK Schools Refuse To Comply With Bible Indoctrination
August 24, 2024

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EDUCATION
Oklahoma revokes license of teacher who gave class QR code to Brooklyn library in book-ban protest

https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2F09%2F85%2F0d5936bb8ae0dc9587e6a5197937%2F5449689124ce44d0a7da67aee29a0ed1

FILE - Former Norman High School English teacher Summer Boismier holds up a T-shirt with a QR code link to the Brooklyn Public Library at the Green Feather Book Company in Norman, Okla., on Oct. 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Sean Murphy, File)

BY NADIA LATHAN
Updated 3:47 PM EDT, August 23, 2024

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. … “I will not apologize for sharing publicly available information about library access with my students,” the former teacher posted on X. “My livelihood will never be as important as someone’s life or right to read what they want.”

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Boismier, a fervent reader with a passion for fantasy novels, had been teaching English for nine years when she was involuntarily thrust into the center of Walters’ campaign for statewide office in August 2022. She received threats on social media and was accused of being part of a broader movement led by teachers to influence children’s political beliefs. Boismier resigned soon after.

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___
Lathan is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

NADIA LATHAN
Lathan is a statehouse reporter based in Austin, Texas. She is a Report for America corps member.

[iluvtennis]

1. This is INSANITY! We're not going back!!!!! n/t

[rubbersole]

2. Looks like Oklahoma is giving desantis a run for his money.

But Florida has a big head start. Rick Scott was governor before meatball. So there's that.

[dameatball]

11. Dammit. I may have to change my name!

[JoseBalow]

18. Oh, I read that as three words

[rubbersole]

25. Brag, brag, brag...

Just because you can read. Well, Texas...Florida had a head start and we got rid of books and competent teachers and our governors are drooling 🤤 idiots. Abbott had better pick up the pace or we'll remain #1 in the nazi race to the bottom forever.

[Lonestarblue]

3. Oklahoma is following Texas down the Taliban rabbit hole.

[ArkansasDemocrat1]

9. Yep

My wife and I were thinking of buying or building there, but she said to me last week that Oklahoma scares her and we should wait. She works a second job there.

That means no one makes $$ from selling me a home or lot, no one makes $$ building a home for me and Mrs ArkD, no community benefits from my property tax and buying things in that community, OK doesn't get $$ for my vehicle plates and so on...

Your hate is costing you big bucks from everyone who is refusing to buy, OK realtors.

OK is NOT ok.

[moonscape]

27. A close friend moved from here

(CA Central Coast) to Tulsa to join a Senior co-housing community. She’s homesick, but needed to go to a lower cost of living place.

That said, she really likes Tulsa, and by nature of who is attracted to co-housing, they are all liberal so she lives in a liberal bubble. She did say though, that she would not live anywhere else in OK! Tulsa (she claims) is more purple than red.

Said there is a great arts community, The Gathering Place is an impressive park, and the Oklahomans she has met and befriended are lovely.

She is as dark blue as I am.

[ArkansasDemocrat1]

28. I'd rather live in Tulsa than OKC

OKC doesn't feel progressive for a city that size.

[AZ8theist]

16. I always thought the thing about Obama being taught in madrassas was stupid....

Because the Reich wing in America wants to switch out public schools for CHRISTIAN MADRASSAS.

Same indoctrination, different book.

[PatrickforB]

4. Massive wrongful firing lawsuit. Massive. n/t

[sinkingfeeling]

5. Illinois will welcome her.

[ShazzieB]

10. Absolutely!

She sounds like a pretty awesome teacher. Illinois, or any other state, would be lucky to have her.

[erronis]

6. This is public information. This effort will fail unless they shut down the internet.

Even if they shut down the public internet, we've learned too much and can get our information out there.

We've used radio-frequency for decades and the technologies have improved incredibly. Frequency shifting and hopping and great error correcting. Sure, the latest Mein Diktator speech may not come through flawlessly, but for sharing information - we'll adapt.

[AllaN01Bear]

8. also , data scrambling .

[jmowreader]

23. The problem is...

...how many people really want to buy a military-grade hardware data scrambler to surf the Internet? Software-only encryption wouldn't be safe because the Christian Taliban would demand backdoors in it.

[ShazzieB]

12. That's right.

It's public info, all right. Virtually all public libraries have websites these days, and a large percentage of those have online searchable catalogs that anyone with internet access can freely browse.

I'd be willing to bet that most of today's high school kids are capable of figuring out how to access library catalogs all over this country and many outside of it, on their own phone, without any extra help. Good luck to Oklahoma with putting a stop to that!

As a former librarian with an undergrad degree in English, all this book banning garbage makes me both outraged and sick!

[AllaN01Bear]

7. i hope the teacher sues . back to the 1950s we go.

[soldierant]

13. I remember the fifties being bad, but not this bad.

Then again, I did most of my reading at home. And neither my mother nor my grandmother would have stoped me from reading anything I wanted to read.

[markodochartaigh]

20. I grew up gay a half century ago in

Amarillo, Texas. As far as I'm aware all of my instructors were far more conservative than my Mom's family. The one I had the biggest problem with was the tennis coach who taught world history. His tests were 80% multiple choice and 20% essay. He always gave me 0 on all of the essay questions. But he was a big tennis star. There was nothing to be done except keep my mouth shut. As far as sex education classes, nothing was taught. The area had, and still has extremely high teen pregnancy rates. And about a quarter of my graduating class didn't make it to 65.

[soldierant]

26. You put me to shame

for failing to remember my own white cis privilege. (At least I'm female.) Not to mention differences of environment. I grew up in California, in the same city that Stanford is in. For much of my childhood the district I lived in voted Republican, but that was not as damning a fact then as it would be now. I had sex education in junior high, bt I didn't really learn anything as my mother had given me a book when I was about 8. That may sound like a cop-out - but she knew I'd rather read than listen And it covered everything that was i the 9th grade class and more. But it didn't cover anything non-binary. But we did talk at home about Christine Jorgenson. So I at least knew that trans people existed and that they were just people who happened to have been born with a soul that didn't match their bodies. No big deal. Your chilhood and teens would have been) much worse. (BTW the address I gre up at is now in a district that is Democratic by 26 points.)

[AZ8theist]

17. They don't want to go back to the 1950s.....

....they want to return to the 1250s!!

[Hermit-The-Prog]

14. The Repression party (formerly, Republican) is now full-blown Talibangelical.

[DENVERPOPS]

15. Oklahoma

that figures............

the most barren "wasteland" of America, that's why they did the "Trail of Tears" to that state.......

Thank goodness they discovered oil, otherwise it would have been used as a depository for Hazardous Waste Materials for the entire nation.

[JoseBalow]

19. "I will not apologize for sharing publicly available information about library access..."

It's just absurd to punish someone for something like this.

[usaf-vet]

21. I'm waiting for Summer Boismier holding up a T-shirt with her retirement date... thanks to the.....

....... a multi-million-dollar $ jury settlement for winning her lawsuit against the school district.

[ancianita]

22. Losing one's teaching license for helping students access books is a badge of honor.

It could fire up the student population to put political pressure on their families & communities to stop this 1A assault.

Teaching professionals fight to maintain high public school education standards beyond state minimums, especially when some states use their children as political footballs.

She's fought the good fight and lost, so her leaving would be OK's loss. Most states have reciprocal licensing and will welcome her.

[tirebiter]

24. A lot of my family is from Oklahoma

I used to have good feelings about there and Texas.

[MyOwnPeace]

29. Amazing, isn't it..........

They want to be sure to have oversight regarding what your kids could or might read in their schools, but won’t do SHIT about keeping them safe from guns in that very same building……… l

[mahatmakanejeeves]

30. Former Norman High School teacher's certificate revoked after two years of turmoil, Walters says

Hat tip, Joe.My.God.

OK Revokes License Of Teacher Over Banned Books
August 25, 2024

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EDUCATION | GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
Former Norman High School teacher’s certificate revoked after two years of turmoil, Walters says

BY: EMMA MURPHY - AUGUST 22, 2024 3:47 PM

OKLAHOMA CITY — Two years after promising to ban a former Norman High School educator from ever teaching in Oklahoma again, state Superintendent Ryan Walters said that teacher’s certification is now revoked.

The teacher, Summer Boismier, drew national attention in August 2022 for posting a QR code in her classroom that linked to a library catalog containing banned books.

The Oklahoma State Board of Education voted on Thursday to approve a new order in the state’s revocation case against Boismier. Walters said the new order, which he hasn’t publicly released, formally revoked her teaching certificate.

Walters claimed Boismier violated House Bill 1775, which bans the teaching of certain race and gender-related concepts, and said she is too liberal to teach in Oklahoma. … “She broke the law, you know,” Walters said after the state board meeting. “And I said from the beginning, when you have a teacher that breaks the law, says she broke the law, says she’ll continue to break the law.”

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