Note: we are republishing this story, which originally made the news in September 2021.
Kara Bell, a mother and former Lake Travis Independent School District board member candidate, was outraged when she stood to address a board meeting.
Bell was livid as she read a passage from a middle school library book.
She read out, “Take her out back, we boys figured, then hand on the t***ies, put it in her cornbox, put it in her cornhole, grab a hold of that braid, rub that calico,” and added, “You can find that on page 39 of the book called ‘Out of Darkness,’ which you can find at Hudson Bend Middle School and Bee Cave Middle School.”
The book, a 2015 young adult novel, is authored by Ashley Hope Pérez.
Bell stated: “All right, not gonna lie, had to Google ‘cornhole’ because I have the game in the back of my yard. But according to Wikipedia, ‘cornhole’ is a sexual slang vulgarism for anus. The term came into … use in the 1910s in the United States … its verb form ‘to cornhole,’ which came into usage in the 1930s, means to have anal sex.”
“I do not want my children to learn about anal sex in middle school! I’ve never had anal sex! I don’t want to have anal sex! I don’t want my kids having anal sex! I want you to start focusing on education and not public health!” she raged.
Her microphone was cut off at this point, but she can still be heard on video stating: “You are not public health officials; you are supposed to be educating our children! Do not teach them about anal sex!”
The school district later revealed that the book had been removed from both middle school libraries and that its contents would be reviewed.
A district spokesperson, citing the school board policy, stated: “A district possesses significant discretion to determine the content of its school libraries. A district must, however, exercise its discretion in a manner consistent with the First Amendment.”
The spokesperson continued, saying that the “district shall not remove materials from a library for the purpose of denying students access to ideas with which the district disagrees. A district may remove materials, because they are pervasively vulgar or based solely upon the educational suitability of the books in question.”
The district maintained that it was unsure about how long the review would take.
