2023 was the year the students fought back

With culture wars playing out in school districts across the nation, even unlikely communities find themselves embroiled in arguments over race, gender identity, sexual orientation — and, yes, cartoon buttocks.

“The worst policies coming out of the state of Texas are taking place simultaneously in Katy,” Nicole Hill, communications director for the American Federation of Teachers-Texas (Texas AFT), said in an interview. “I look at Katy as a petri dish. We’ve had a rough couple of legislative sessions with a lot of these culture war education issues driving the narrative.” (Disclosure: The AFT is a financial supporter of Capital & Main.)

The Katy Independent School District is a highly rated public school district with about 86,000 students in parts of Harris, Fort Bend and Waller counties. Katy proper is a suburb of Houston, a left-leaning city that has voted Democratic for more than a decade.

Before Katy grabbed the spotlight, Hill said, most of the cultural battles had been unfolding in North Texas, which is more conservative.

Since 2021, Katy has been among cities where conservative parent groups, notably Moms for Liberty, have successfully pushed state legislators and school districts to impose book bans, internet censorship and requirements that districts inform parents when students choose to identify as transgender or to use different names or pronouns at school.

Students in Katy and elsewhere have resisted in ways small and large. They have spoken out at school board meetings, launched “banned book” clubs to read the books that adults have said they shouldn’t read and held LGBTQ+ pride events, with parents and non-LGBTQ students showing their support.

 
In November, Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT), a student-led movement, filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) to challenge the district’s requirement that students be outed to their parents. The student group delivered the complaint to the department’s Office for Civil Rights.

Jarred Burton, 16, a junior at Tompkins High School who identifies as bisexual and is an activist with SEAT, wrote this in an op-ed for the Houston Chronicle: 

“As a Katy ISD student, I worry that the school district’s policy is putting lives in danger. Part of the policy requires staff to notify parents if their child requests to use a different name or pronouns at school. In the case of an abusive, disapproving family, outing a student like that could put them in significant danger — a clear violation of the Texas Educators’ Code of Ethics.”

As of Nov. 1, the district had sent 19 such notifications to parents in the two months since the policy was instituted, according to a report in Houston Landing, a website devoted to public service journalism.

Pooja Kalwani, 17, a senior at Tompkins High School, said in an interview that the “outing” policy was a source of stress for students and teachers alike.

“I see these teachers every day, and they love their students and love teaching,” Kalwani said. “What they absolutely despise is seeing students go through any struggles personally. … They’re having to see their trans students hide a part of themselves. … It’s hard to see them trying to find this balance: I want to respect my students, but I can’t lose my job.”

Texas AFT also opposes the outing policy.

“Our union’s priority is the fight for thriving Texas public schools,” Hill said in an email. “Thriving schools are safe schools — for all students. We’re proud of Katy ISD students for standing up for what’s right — standing up for their classmates — when too many adults in charge refuse to do so.”
 

“I attempted to visit LGBTQ websites. They were blocked. That was so hurtful to see for a young child in the middle of discovering who I was.”

~ Cameron Samuels, former Katy Independent School District student

 
Cameron Samuels, 19, a 2022 graduate of Katy’s Seven Lakes High School who attends Brandeis University and continues to advocate from afar, said they hoped the complaint would get results.

“We opted for early mediation, which means, if Katy ISD agrees to participate, the [Office for Civil Rights] will not open an investigation,” Samuels said. “We made this decision because we seek a more immediate resolution, and we already know the facts because our complaint was based on public knowledge (the policy itself and a [Freedom of Information Act] request revealing that the district outed 19 students).”

Samuels shared an email with Capital & Main from the Office for Civil Rights’ regional office in Dallas confirming that it had received the complaint.

Samuels, who identifies as nonbinary, said that Katy schools served them well academically but that the district had become “oppressive … particularly with the recent rhetoric.” Samuels first experienced the district’s internet filter as a high school freshman.

“I attempted to visit LGBTQ websites,” Samuels said. “They were blocked. That was so hurtful to see for a young child in the middle of discovering who I was.”

According to a recent report from the American Library Association, Texas was the state that saw the most attempts to restrict or ban books in 2022. The report pinpointed 93 attempts to restrict access to 2,349 book titles in Texas last year — nearly double the total in Pennsylvania, the next highest  state for book ban efforts, with 56 attempts related to 302 titles. Not all of the books were banned.

In Katy, school officials bought $93,000 worth of new library books earlier this year and put them in storage so that an internal committee could review them. The district banned 14 of the books, including popular titles by Judy Blume and Dr. Seuss, bringing the total of “removed” books to about 30.

To its embarrassment, the Katy ISD Board of Trustees realized that its “nudity” bans had extended to several elementary school library books depicting cartoon backsides. In September, the board relented and, perhaps to avoid being the butt of jokes, allowed some books that had been barred to return to school shelves. Among them were such classics as Dr. Seuss’ Wacky Wednesday and David Shannon’s No, David!
 

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, the 1970 classic by Judy Blume, was initially banned and then reinstated for secondary school students. It remains banned for younger pupils.

 
At the time, Victor Perez, the school board’s president, clarified the policy at a board meeting. 

“Overall, the policy has to do with, per the law, keeping harmful and obscene material, sexually explicit materials, out of the schools, and then we have a section in the policy dealing with elementary schools.”

He went on: “The board did not intend that whatsoever to include, for example, a No, David!or a Wacky Wednesday book that would include cartoon depictions of a little boy’s butt. And so we … changed the sentence to say what we’re talking about is explicit frontal nudity.”

Among the books that remain banned, many deal with racial and LGBTQ+ themes. They include This Book Is Gay, Be Amazing: A History of Pride and All Boys Aren’t Blue.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, the 1970 classic by Judy Blume, was initially removed and then reinstated for secondary school students. It remains banned for younger pupils. The Katy ISD website lists about 30 other books that have been “removed.” But some of those titles also appear on a list of books that have been “retained” for some grades. Suffice to say that the situation is in flux. 

A side note: Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury’s iconic dystopian novel about book bans and book burnings, which was published 70 years ago, remains on the allowed list.

“Banning that would be way too on the nose,” Burton, the high school junior, quipped.

One Texas mother and activist who follows the culture wars in Katy and elsewhere views the book bans and “parental authority” trends as disheartening. She and compatriots have been promoting progressive candidates for school board elections throughout Texas. 

“I’m constantly in a state of tears,” said Nancy Thompson, an activist Latina who lives in Austin. “We really are the majority. But the other team is incredibly loud.”

By resisting book bans and limitations on personal rights, she said, “we are fighting for democracy versus living in a fascist state in a fascist country. Book bans are not going to stop people from being gay.”

In the midst of the culture wars, Hill said, Katy ISD is dealing with budget cuts and funding issues.

“They cannot pay teachers enough, and workload issues are driving them out of the career,” she said. “The district is struggling while also implementing all of the worst policies the [state] Legislature could think of. It’s a fascinating microcosm of the struggles of public schools in this state right now.”