Prosper parents and state Rep. Jared Patterson are on a quest to remove ‘obscene’ books from schools

Prosper ISD is the latest North Texas school district facing criticism over the contents of its school libraries.

The district has been singled out by state Rep. Jared Patterson, R-Frisco, and Prosper Citizen Group, a political action committee made up of Prosper parents. They are seeking to remove from the district a graphic novel that has been criticized by Gov. Greg Abbott for its illustrations.

In a social media post this week, Patterson said Prosper ISD campuses have the book, Gender Queer: A Memoir, by Maia Kobabe. Superintendent Holly Ferguson and other district officials said they had already removed the book from schools, but the PAC isn’t satisfied with that answer.

The group said it doesn’t believe the book was removed, based on a review of district library software. It also called for the removal of 82 other books owned by Prosper ISD, which has more than 327,000 books in circulation throughout its campuses.

A formal review will likely take months, according to the district, which has more than 22,000 students.

Patterson’s efforts in Prosper are part of an email and letter campaign that began last November, when he sent an email and letter to every public school administration in his district asking the same question: Are pornographic books available to students?

“I will be working diligently with the appropriate state and local officials to get to the bottom of this issue to protect Texas’ students from being provided and assigned sexually explicit reading materials in an environment to which they have been entrusted,” Patterson wrote in the letter he sent to Prosper ISD and posted online Jan. 25.

Prosper officials said they agree that public schools aren’t the right place for adult content. Obviously age-inappropriate content will be removed if found, officials said, and the district will do everything it can to ensure it does not make its way into schools.The district has a formal process in place for determining a book’s appropriateness based on laws and school board policies.

“Permanently removing a book from a library is not something that should be taken lightly,” the district told The Dallas Morning News in a prepared statement.

“The beauty of a school library is that students have the choice of which books to read,” the statement read. “Parents and their children can work together to ensure that the reading materials that their child chooses align with their beliefs, without impinging on the rights of another student or family to make a different choice.”

Fights over curriculum and school library books, especially regarding race or sexuality, are the latest issues energizing conservative bases, both in Texas and nationwide.

Much of what is being targeted comes under what’s been transformed into an umbrella term: critical race theory. It’s an academic framework that probes the way policies and laws uphold systemic racism, but it has been co-opted by conservative pundits to describe a broad range of schools’ diversity and inclusion events.

On Tuesday, in response to a question was about school boards banning books, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said she had not discussed the topic with President Joe Biden.

“But I can tell you that as an administration, we believe in the freedom of speech and expression,” she added. “And certainly, we have never been advocates of preventing people from understanding and reading history.”

While Prosper ISD conducts its review, parents are free to submit the topics and titles to their school librarian that they don’t want their children to check out or access, said Ferguson, the superintendent.

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Washington bureau chief Todd J. Gillman and staff writers Talia Richman and Emily Donaldson contributed to this report.