School board president trolls Moms for Liberty by getting sworn in on stack of banned books

The newly appointed school board president in Pennsylvania’s third-largest school district was sworn in this week on a stack of frequently banned books.

Incumbent Karen Smith was one of five Democrats who defeated Republican candidates endorsed by national anti-LGBTQ+ group Moms for Liberty in last month’s Central Bucks School Board elections, flipping the board from a 6–3 Republican majority to a 6–3 Democratic majority. Together, the five Democrats ran as the Neighbors United for School Board slate of candidates and opposed the previous Republican majority’s “book banning, anti-LGBTQA+ policies, and ‘culture war’ politics.”

Related:

Voters say no to hate as Moms for Liberty candidates are defeated across the country

The anti-LGBTQ+ group’s candidates lost big in at least four states.

On Monday night, Smith was sworn in for her third term and was also chosen as the board’s new president. When she took her oath of office, she placed her hand on a stack of six books that have been challenged or banned in school districts across the country, rather than the Bible. Four of the books centered on LGBTQ+ characters and themes.

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Smith told The Philadelphia Inquirer that she wanted to make her commitment “to fighting for the books, and for our students’ freedom to read” clear.

“I’m not particularly religious. The Bible doesn’t hold significant meaning for me, and given everything that has occurred in the last couple of years, the banned books, they do mean something to me at this point,” she said.

According to the Inquirer, Smith was first elected to the school board in 2015 as a Republican but switched parties in 2021 after fellow conservatives voted against allowing a school counselor to attend training on transgender issues. “I thought, ‘I can’t be a part of these kind of actions,’” she said. “The Republican Party has lost its way.”

Alongside Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Eli Wiesel’s Night, Smith was sworn in Monday night on copies of Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart, All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson, Flamer by Mike Curato, and Beyond Magenta by Susan Kuklin. Several of the books appeared on a list of “sexually explicit” titles distributed by the right-wing group WokePA, as well as a list of 61 titles challenged under the previous board’s July 2022 library policy.

Smith took issue with WokePA’s characterization of Lily and Dunkin, noting that she had actually read the book and found no sexual content in it. “Just the existence of a transgender student in the book was enough for some folks who want to challenge it, and it’s a beautiful story,” she told PhillyBurbs.

She described the six real trans teens profiled in Kuklin’s Beyond Magenta as “courageous,” calling it “a valuable book that some young people could really benefit from.” And while she acknowledges the sexual content in All Boys Aren’t Blue, she likewise called author George M. Johnson “courageous” for writing about his own sexual assault in the book.

The new Central Bucks school board has already halted four controversial policies passed by the previous board, including two related to library books, a ban on Pride flags, and another restricting transgender student athletes’ participation in school sports. The board also voted unanimously to challenge a more than $700,000 severance package given to former Superintendent Abram Lucabaugh by former Republican board members whose anti-LGBTQ+ agenda he supported.

Smith also promised that the more than 60 books challenged under the previous board’s library policy would remain on shelves, though she is unsure what will happen with the two LGBTQ+ books that were officially banned.