Megan Reilly is running for North Kingstown School Committee and it's not simply about banning books
“Yes, I have read these books and by the way, others, and this is all in these books, so I ask how I take that out of context. It is the context.”
“I am talking real fast. I got a lot to say,” said Megan Reilly, approaching the podium at a North Kingstown School Committee meeting in October 2021. Two of her friends were posing up behind her, holding placards decorated with images from offending books such as Gender Queer. “Don't start [the timer] yet,'“ said Reilly, who then started her spiel.
By the time Megan Reilly took the microphone in North Kingstown to oppose the inclusion of the graphic novel Gender Queer in the school library, the script had been well-established. Over a year earlier Stacy Langton had gone viral reading from the book in Fairfax County, Virginia. Attacking the book had become an established way of creating controversy and conservative outrage.
The script goes something like this:
I have read this book.
This book contains the following bad words.
This book depicts the following bad acts.
This book is being made available to our children.
Megan Reilly is on the ballot, with friends, for a seat on the North Kingstown School Committee in this year’s general election.
Reilly continued:
“I have read these books, and others from the current high school English curriculum, and asked, ‘Who's choosing these books?’
“I got a response from the North Kingstown English Department chair: ‘Our teachers collectively review new book choices and agree on their placement within the curriculum.’
“Per Jake Mather [School Committee member who stepped down in 2022], ‘Our current curriculum was very highly vetted and researched by our teachers, administrators, department heads, and then brought to the school committee for approval.’
“Per [School Committee member] Jennifer Lima: ‘The district has a team that is tasked with overseeing the curriculum and I defer to their professional judgment in that area.’
“However,” continued Reilly, “the official school committee policy says something different: ‘A curriculum cycle will be established to provide for continuous updating and renewal of the curriculum, including selections of materials. A district curriculum committee chaired by the curriculum director and composed of students, parents, teachers, administrators, and elected officials will oversee the curriculum improvement process.’
“Per the North Kingstown High School Handbook, page 21: ‘Students who violate the behavior expectations in our school community will receive consequences for the use of discriminatory language, foul or offensive language.’
“I apologize for the next part, to the little kids who are here listening, but these books in the curriculum are rife with words like retard, douchebag, erection, masturbation, masturbator, goddamn, hell, shit, fuck, asshole, ass, bitch, boner, hard-on, big balls, fag, lesbians, gay, homo, and Jesus Christ.
“And in 2018, the author of this book, [Sherman Alexie] was accused by 20, mostly Native American women, of sexual abuse and harassment, including sexual intimidation, sexual manipulation, and overt sexual coercion. He later apologized for his behavior.
“Per Gender Queer. Per the school committee policy, and IGF [a curriculum review and updating committee]: ‘The school media center is a part of the total school program.’
“Dr. Auger, who says he has read this book, as have I - as I stated, this is available in our library. According to Dr. Auger: ‘I feel it is important to see these images and quotations in the context of the full text.’ [Former North Kingstown School Superintendent Phil Auger resigned in 2022 - before a report about the naked fat testing scandal was released.]
“I didn't have time to show you the whole book, so here are just a few things in the book,” said Reilly, referring to the placards decorated with out-of context images from Gender Queer, held by her friends. “And in this case, [Dr. Auger] says, ‘The intent of the author is to be concerned for the sexual health of those who are transgender, clearly not to be pornographic. With pornography, there is an intent to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings. Interest in erotic gay fiction has been so prevalent in my friendships. One could mistake it for a prerequisite.’
“Furthermore, there are three references in this book that I found, and probably more, that refer to a sex toy website, which actually talks about fun things like under 30 gay saunas, books for teens on sex education, fantasies, and sexual techniques defined and demonstrated. There's also a reference to a memoir [by] a lesbian author who describes her father as a closeted homosexual teacher who is involved with his male students.
“And finally, a website that actually is a porno website, an adults-only gay or straight porn site that specifically states, ‘pick your porn gay or straight, provided that you are 18 years of age or older and aren't offended by sexually explicit imagery, you agree that you will not permit any person under 18 to have access to any of these materials contained within this site.’”
By the time Megan Reilly appeared before the North Kingstown School Committee, she was ready to a least verbally refute the idea, developed since this faux controversy began, that taking words and images out of context is easy to do. So Reilly ended her three minutes with the following:
“Yes, I have read these books and by the way, others, and this is all in these books, so I ask how I take that out of context. It is the context.”
Gender Queer is not pornographic. Some of the imagery is shocking - out of context - but the work is honest and helps us to understand what it's like to identify as other than cisgender and heterosexual. That's why the book has won awards.
But let's not take the attempted [and successful] efforts to ban certain books out of context either. It's not really about Gender Queer, just as it's not really about DEI initiatives, transgender student policies, or mask mandates. These efforts are part of a wider attack on the very idea of public education. Any issue that can be used to call public education into question is part of a larger effort to defund and ultimately replace our public schools with private religious schools such as the Chesterton Academy of Our Lady of Hope, or corporate charter schools throughout Providence and the urban core.
Reilly was on the Board of the Chesterton Academy of Our Lady of Hope in July 2023, when she appeared on The Road Show, helping to explain that the Academy is a “parent-led” Catholic School in the “classical style” - not part of any diocesan or parish school system. Think of this as a traditional [right-wing] Catholic flavored parents-rights school.
Chesterton Schools were established to push back against a Catholicism seen as too liberal since the reforms of Vatican II, and to challenge the legitimacy of Papal Authority when it sought to liberalize church teachings and practices. The Chesterton Academy in Rhode Island, the only one in New England, was given official sanction by Bishop Thomas Tobin, a frequent critic of liberal Catholicism, just before his retirement.
The Chesterton Academy of Our Lady of Hope states that it does not discriminate against any person on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, or national origin, but conspicuously leaves out sexual orientation and gender identity.
Dr. Denise Donohue Ed.D., writing for the conservative Catholic Cardinal Newman Society, explains that,
“Independent schools are a relatively new phenomenon in the history of American Catholic education. Even before the parochial school movement of the mid-19th century, Catholic schools were established and operated under the auspices of ecclesial entities, most often religious orders devoted to teaching and evangelization. However, amid the crisis of faith and authority following the Second Vatican Council and the rapid decline in parochial school enrollment since the 1960s, lay Catholics began establishing their own schools. Often these were motivated by a lack of institutional will or ability to open a Catholic school nearby, compromises to faithful teaching and practice at local Catholic schools, or concerns about the cost of parochial education following the abdication of teaching nuns and clergy whose support had made Catholic schools affordable to the lowest-income families. Today several trends are converging to drive the increase in independent Catholic education, including societal changes effected by gender ideology, critical race theory, relativism, and materialism as well as the increased availability of funding through school choice programs.”
Dr. Donohue continues:
“Long after the turmoil of the post-Vatican II years, there has been a steady growth of independent schools providing faithful Catholic formation. While the reasons seem as varied as the laypeople founding these schools, there are some common motivators.
“Following the 2009 release of the Common Core State Standards, there quickly followed a revised SAT college entrance exam that conformed to the Common Core. This deeply concerned Catholic school leaders, as they did not want their students testing at a disadvantage below public school students. The Common Core appeared to be the future of public education at that time, and Catholic schools did not want to be “left behind.” As a result, more than 100 of the 175 diocesan school systems implemented the Common Core Standards to some degree. With the standards came new aligned textbooks, and some parents began to wonder what the true difference between a public and Catholic school education was when so many of the instructional components in both types of schools were identical. Parents also struggled with the Common Core math approach. Many had concerns about the Common Core leading to a centralized and political federal takeover of education.
“More recently, we have seen the shockingly rapid ascendency of radical gender ideology and critical race theory. These ideologies have infected those Catholic schools that lack a firm grounding in Catholic teaching, clear internal policies, and teachers and administrators with a thorough understanding of Christian anthropology and human dignity. Parents are concerned about transgender ideology influencing their children and racial division and resentment fostered by current ideology.
“The Covid-19 pandemic also seems to have spurred interest in independent schooling. School shutdowns led to student mental health issues including depression, anxiety, and attention deficit disorder, exacerbated by unmonitored and limitless access to technology and social media. Many Catholic schools were quick to return to in-person learning, but others remained closed for many months and provided only online classes. Even at schools that opened, there was substantial disagreement about masking policies. All this encouraged parents to seek schools that are independent of diocesan operational policies while fully adhering to Church authority on faith and morals.
“Finally, the ‘classical’ movement has attracted many Catholic parents to independent schools with a traditional, Catholic liberal arts focus. “Classical” has become a way of signaling that a school is faithful to Catholic teaching, conservative, patriotic, and rejects the current culture push. These schools mitigate the impact of the common culture by reducing screen time in school, persuading parents to not give their children early access to cell phones, and reducing or eliminating student use of social media. Instead, they focus on good literature and the sources of Western culture.”
Pope Francis in 2023, reacting to a comment that in America, “even bishops openly criticized [his] leadership of the Roman Catholic Church,” spoke against the “backwardness” of some conservative American Catholics. According to The Washington Post, the Pope, “blasted the ‘strong reactionary attitude’ among American Catholics. He described them with an apparently self-created word - indietristi, or backward-looking people - and argued that they don’t understand how faith and morals can evolve.”
“Those American groups you talk about, so closed, are isolating themselves,” said the Pope. “Instead of living by doctrine, by the true doctrine that always develops and bears fruit, they live by ideologies.”