Protect Our Schools: Say NO to Book Bans
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Dear Friend:

If there is one thing I feel like I am constantly doing as a parent, it’s
repeating myself to my children. Apparently I also have to keep repeating
myself to ultra-extremist Republicans who keep wanting to mess with our
schools.

Across the country parents have consistently told extremist Republicans
that we do not support their extremist so-called “parental rights” agenda
of banning books, discriminating against students and teachers, and making
life harder for our kids at school. Yet they keep coming up with ways to
do just that. This time by trying to slip some of this nonsense into an
important piece of must-pass legislation, the National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA).

[ [link removed] ]→ SIGN NOW to tell your members of Congress to reject any attempts to
weaken Department of Defense schools and remove extremist so-called
“parents rights” from the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

What’s happening? Every year Congress has to pass a bill called the
National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This is the legislation that
funds our national defense, including training and equipment for our
troops, support for service members and their families, as well as funding
for Department of Defense (DoD) K-12 schools that operate on military
bases both domestically and abroad.

This spring, U.S. House Republicans passed a national extremist “parental
rights” bill, but luckily, the more moderate Senate did not act on it.
Instead of taking “no” for an answer, they are now trying to pass this
unwanted, unnecessary, and unpopular garbage by slipping it into must-pass
legislation — the NDAA. [1]

In doing this, Republican leaders are laying the foundations to pass a
suite of anti-public education and pro-censorship laws that will impact
all our schools. And they are doing this despite the fact that poll after
poll, and election after election, keep showing that parents reject an
extremist education agenda, which censors our history, bans books, harms
our students, stigmatizes trans students, LGBTQIA+ students and educators,
and students with LGBTQIA+ parents. If signed into law, this NDAA would
impose an extremist agenda on DoD public schools that opens the door to
book banning and puts far too many administrative burdens on our teachers.
[2,3,4,5]

[ [link removed] ]→ We need the U.S. Senate to take this harmful language out of the NDAA
and for the U.S. House to pass a version of the NDAA that gives children
of service members the freedom to learn. Add your voice to our letter now.

It’s frustrating to keep repeating myself to my kids, but I know their
brains are still developing and they’re learning. It’s INFURIATING to have
to keep repeating ourselves to Republican leaders, but here we are so
let’s get into it.

Moms and teachers know the current attacks on schools are not okay. In
fact, Moms ARE horrified right now about the attacks we’ve been seeing on
public education and on our kids across the country.

Polls show that these attacks are deeply unpopular with moms and
grandmothers from all backgrounds. In fact, moms are so horrified that we
came out and voted in a big way earlier this month – and reports show that
70% of the extremist school board candidates lost.

Let’s be clear: [ [link removed] ]Moms for Liberty, and this extremist so-called
“Parent’s Rights” legislation, has never represented America’s mothers and
families — and its effort to ‘mom-wash’ an agenda of hate is failing.

To be clear, we deeply appreciate and value our military service members
and their families, and the educators who serve them, and Section 651 in
the NDAA doesn’t honor our service members. It does the opposite. Instead
it would damage the parent-teacher relationship with hostile reporting and
commenting requirements—something we have already seen increase teacher
shortages in states like Florida. [ [link removed] ] It could also facilitate the banning
of books, particularly those that provide the much-needed viewpoints of
our Black, Brown, AAPI, religious-minority, and LGBTQ+ communities.

This language also undercuts efforts to create safe environments for all
children by undermining crucial public health data.

Finally, this section is an unnecessary burden that would only serve to
distract educators from the most crucial work of teaching and supporting
our country’s children.

[ [link removed] ]Language like this has NO PLACE in our National Defense Authorization
Act. Congress must take it out now.

We WANT schools to be safe and inclusive and to value diversity; for
parents to be a partner in their children’s success; and for educators to
be valued and respected. Teachers must be allowed to teach our country’s
truths, good and bad, and the values that got us to where we are today. We
want parents to be involved and engaged in their children’s education, not
be forced to participate in burdensome reporting requirements. We want our
children to learn about the history and obstacles faced, and overcome, by
members of Black, Brown, AAPI, Native American, immigrant,
religious-minority, LGBTQ+, and other communities. We want our students to
be able to access unbiased health information. We want all our youth,
regardless of income, disability, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual
orientation, and gender identity, to be safe and included in schools that
prepare them to contribute to and succeed in our society.

America's moms want a society that rejects “us vs. them” divisiveness
misrepresented as “family values,” and instead advances programs that
unite and uplift all families. That’s what makes our country stronger.

[ [link removed] ]→ Join us in repeating this message to Congress and say: Again, we
strongly urge the removal of so-called “parental rights” from the National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Thank you,
Ruth, Jenny, Kristin, Donna, Monifa, Elyssa, Nina, Tina, Beatriz and the
whole MomsRising.org & MamásConPoder Team

P.S. As a dedicated signer of our petitions, we wanted to say THANK YOU
and also share another high-impact way that you can take action with
MomsRising.

Following @MomsRising and @MamasConPoder and sharing the action links and
content on social media is an easy way to also make a big difference in a
short time. You can find us on all of your favorite social media platforms
and tag us in your content @MomsRising and @MamasConPoder to keep the
conversation going!

[6]X/Twitter | [ [link removed] ]Instagram | [ [link removed] ]Facebook | [ [link removed] ]TikTok | [ [link removed] ]YouTube |
[ [link removed] ]Threads

References:

[1] [ [link removed] ]NBC News: House passes the GOP's Parents Bill of Rights measure
opposed by Biden

[2] [ [link removed] ]MomsRising: Overwhelming Majority of Mom, Women Voters Reject
DeSantis Agenda, New National Survey Finds

[3] [ [link removed] ]AP: Liberal and moderate candidates take control of school boards
in contentious races across US

[4] [ [link removed] ]Kansas Reflector: In Kansas school board races, voters reject
candidates pushing culture war issues

[5] [ [link removed] ]Columbus Dispatch: Central Ohio voters mostly rejected school
board candidates endorsed by conservative groups

[6] [ [link removed] ]NBC News: Florida teachers are worried new policies could get them
fired — or even criminally charged


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