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.

  • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Chasing away your teachers is a great way to make sure your state stays at the bottom of every US state comparison table, so great job.

    • huzzahunimpressively@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      They realize with house prices there’s no magical white collar job Howard Cunningham can get that will provide enough

      Does capitan underpants got banned?

  • modifier@lemmy.ca
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    3 months ago

    Thank you, Summer Boismier, for standing up for what is right and being a true patriot.

  • davidagain@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    It’s so dystopian that teachers lose their jobs for encouraging children to read and that “free speech” advocates in state government are literally censoring books, the very thing that the first amendment is designed to stop governments doing.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Teacher will eventually get a fat, taxpayer-funded lawsuit award. The republicans are such backwards, self-hating, broken people.

    How hard would it be for another state, that isn’t so dedicated to shooting its own foot, reinstate/award them a teaching license as a gesture?

      • ripcord@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        For 3 seconds or so I was confused, wondering why Oregon or Washington would be considered particularly small or dense

    • ____@infosec.pub
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      2 months ago

      Generally? Well within the executive power / administrative law of any given state as noted by BlueFalcon below.

      Practically? I’d expect it to be quite a struggle. For licensed professions in general (doctors, real estate, insurance, hairdressers, etc.) most or all states ask a question to the effect of “Has your license for profession ever been suspended or revoked in any other state?”. It may or may not be an automatic disqualifier, but even if not it’s an uphill battle.

      It prevents the real estate agent who stole someone’s earnest money from upping stakes to the next state and getting licensed, but since the standards for suspending/revoking licenses vary widely by state I lean towards believing that perhaps it should be a factor, and perhaps the state board of profession should meet to review the application, but previous disciplinary action in some other state is in no way an absolute statement about someone’s fitness to practice in their chosen field.

  • Cadeillac@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    An attorney for Boismier, who now works at the Brooklyn Public Library in New York City

    I am assuming and hoping they are talking about the teacher getting a job there. That’s fucking awesome if so

    • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Yeah, she got the fuck out of dodge like two years ago. This case has been dragging on for a long time - OSDE has done shady shit like change the meeting time when they saw KFOR reporters there.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      2 months ago

      Well, it sounds like the attorney has a job still, and it probably pays a little better too, so I assume so.

      • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
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        2 months ago

        The first line of the article calls her “a former teacher” so I took it to mean she was the one working at the NY library.

        Edit to add …

        Boismier lost her job after she gave students a QR code to the Brooklyn Public Library’s Books Unbanned project. Now she’s in charge of teen initiatives at the library, and will be part of its Freedom to Read Advocacy Institute with PEN America. The free, online four-week training program will teach high school students to combat book banning in their schools and libraries. Source

  • blazera@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Do you think its a feedback loop that states with the worst test scores make the worst decisions about education?

    • Snapz@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      A designed loop until they can make the whole thing implode and eliminate public education. Goal is to then drive to religious schools with vouchers that cost more and more work time and importantly to keep woman in the home, not working, and persistently pregnant.

      • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        They think they can force the '50s on America? They realize with house prices there’s no magical white collar job Howard Cunningham can get that will provide enough for a house and allow Miriam to stay home and care for Ritchie and Joanie, right? Even if Miriam has no education and there’s no choice, it’s not enough to support 4 people and a house.

        Even beyond the textbook cruelty of subjugating one person under another based on sex like it’s Afghanistan, limiting education so they’re pliable and dehumanized and dependent, the fact remains: it’s impossible financially to re-create the McCarthy era no matter how much they really really want it in their twisted, poisoned hearts.

        For so, oh so many reasons, we’re not going back.

      • jaybone@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        In this scenario, how does the ruling class maintain their numbers? Do they send their kids to private schools where the actual education occurs? Or they haven’t thought that far ahead yet?

        • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
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          2 months ago

          Do they send their kids to private schools where the actual education occurs?

          Yes. That’s what they’ve been doing for well over a century. It’s also one of the greatest arguments for banning and criminalizing private educational institutions. Forcing the wealthy to use the same schools also forces them to not destroy it.

        • SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          I have met some rentier class people (massive wealth from charging for their massive assets), and their kids went to expensive private schools. The scenario is not hypothetical.

          Kidnapping is a real fear at that level of remove from the ‘Great Unwashed.’

    • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      No because the same fuckers have been in power for the last 70 years. They’re the ones that started the changes.

  • aeronmelon@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    How regressive and backwards and detrimental to humanity you have to be to get mad at a teacher for distributing educational material.

  • m-p{3}@lemmy.ca
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    3 months ago

    Hopefully more teachers engage in this sort of activism: put out QR code stickers on the school walls, in the shape of business cards laying around in public areas, etc

    • masterofn001@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      Soon:

      Only ‘god’s word’ may be read. But only by those appointed by ‘god’.

      Reading is the apple in Eden.

      • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        This is how it used to be. Ordinary people couldn’t read the Bible, so they had to take the priests’ word for what was in there. Some evangelicals would truly like to return to this.