This Teacher Gave Students Access to ‘Banned’ Books. She Was Put on Leave and Resigned.

As teachers all across the U.S. flee the profession, their colleagues still working in education in red states are grappling with laws dreamt up by conservative legislators and governors to eradicate any acknowledgment of race, gender, and sexuality from the classroom.

One teacher in Norman, Oklahoma, found out what that looks like in practice when school resumed last week. Just one day into the school year, Summer Boismier was told she was required to attend a disciplinary hearing after she shared a QR code with her students linking to the Brooklyn Public Library’s Books Unbanned site, which provides digital and audio access to censored books. (Boismier’s story was first reported by FOX 25 in Oklahoma City.)

Boismier, a doctoral student at the University of Oklahoma who’s been teaching for nearly a decade and previously signed a public pledge against such bills, says she was almost immediately put on paid administrative leave and was forced to miss school Monday and Tuesday.

Oklahoma passed its own version of so-called anti-critical race theory (CRT) legislation in 2021, and the Republican-dominated state Board of Education approved permanent rules concerning enforcement of the law in March.

Already this year, Tulsa Public Schools—the state’s second-largest district—had their accreditation downgraded when a teacher complained about a staff training that had been provided before the law even passed, and Mustang Public Schools faced similar consequences after self-reporting a supposed violation of the law, according to EdWeek.

A district-level document that was provided to teacher just days before school starts, and shared with VICE News, says that, among other things, teachers must ensure that all books “have at least two professional reviews,” “invite the reader to consider and engage with concept, feelings, facts, or communities,” and that the books “reflect diverse perspectives, cultural practices, and social identities.”

The district also required teachers to sign a sheet saying that they would remove all books that didn’t meet the district’s criteria (and all books they were unsure about) or that they would “pause student access to my classroom libraries until I have time to review the books.” Boismier told VICE News her library has more than 500 books.

In a statement to VICE News, Norman Public Schools denied that Boismier had ever been suspended. Spokesperson Wes Moody said a “concerned parent” raised the complaint about Boismier, who the district claimed “made personal, political statements and used their classroom to make a political display expressing those opinions.”

“Like many educators, the teacher has concerns regarding censorship and book removal by the Oklahoma state legislature,” Moody said. “However, as educators it is our goal to teach students to think critically, not to tell them what to think.” The district also claimed that Boismier was never “terminated, suspended, or placed on administrative leave.” Boismier told VICE News that she “disagrees with the characterization of leave.”

In a statement to VICE News, the Brooklyn Public Library said “it stands firmly against censorship and for the principles of intellectual freedom—the right of every individual to seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. Limiting access or providing one-sided information is a threat to democracy itself and we can not sit idly by while books rejected by a few are removed from library shelves for all.”

After a disciplinary hearing Tuesday, Boismier told VICE News she was offered a chance to return to the classroom, but chose to resign instead.

“There were some fundamental ideological differences between myself and district representatives that I just couldn’t get past,” Boismier told VICE News after she resigned Tuesday. “HB 1775 has created an impossible working environment for teachers and a devastating learning environment for students.”

“For the 2nd year in a row, students at Norman High will be without a certified English teacher for a substantial amount of time,” Boismier said. “The fault for that lies with Governor Stitt and Republican state leadership.”

This conversation with Boismier has been edited for length and clarity.

What sort of guidance did you get from Norman Public Schools on complying with HB 1775?

Very shortly before educators started reporting for in-service, the school board handed on these admonishments for Mustang Public Schools and Tulsa Public Schools, and it’s my understanding that the consequences that were doled out were harsher than originally intended. (Note: the state downgraded both school districts’ accreditations for alleged violations of the law.)

[But] this legislation has created an environment of fear, it’s done exactly what it was designed to do; it’s chilled speech and resistance..I would love to see the rationale behind why our state board feels like that kind of draconian policy is important or worth punishing school districts over. It doesn’t seem consistent with what the state board should be doing, which is stewarding our public schools. Instead we’re attacking them, and it’s all part of this effort to privatize public education, choke the schools, downgrade their accreditation, then you have the legal standing to dissolve them.

I got the impression that no one knows how we’re supposed to navigate this legislation because it’s poorly written and attempting to legislate and criminalize thoughts and feelings, which is impossible to do. I know in a lot of districts, the guidance has been unclear and an effort to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks, because nobody is really sure.

Could you explain what happened with the QR code?

On August 12, my department was called together for a meeting and the principal and assistant principal were present. And there was discussion around, “What do we do?” The Secretary of Education has been stirring up outrage, and we’ve seen the state Board of Education has been willing to go along with this and essentially do the governor’s bidding when it comes to public education. There was, in that meeting, a great deal of uncertainty and frustration, and there were tears, because we all know this is wrong.

I got the impression that certain administrators wanted to be supportive, but they had no real clue of what this meant. I was told, “You can turn your books around so the pages are facing outward so students can’t see the spine.” It was framed as an attempt to protect Norman teachers; I viewed it as an attempt to protect the district from their teachers.

I covered my shelves, and I placed a QR code on the butcher paper covering the texts. Nowhere in my negotiated agreement, nowhere in our instructions, did it say I couldn’t do that. Administrators have had numerous opportunities to view this. I taught my first day and students inevitably had questions—when you walk into an English classroom and there are no books but butcher paper over the shelves, that elicits an honest curiosity.

Shortly after school let out, I was informed by my principal that I was going to attend a disciplinary hearing that following Monday. I was not given many specifics at all as to what it pertained to, I was not informed that I was being placed on administrative leave, or to the nature of the complaint or what was behind it.

When the anti-CRT bill passed, what was your thought process like on how to comply or engage with it?

When HB 1775 passed, I would venture to say that the majority of public school teachers were very, very concerned. The Oklahoma Legislature has a habit of creating solutions for problems that don’t exist, and this is a law that attempts to legislate feelings and intent, and in my opinion that’s impossible to legislate. It’s pretty apparent no educators were involved in the process.

It’s been referred to as the CRT bill, but the term critical race theory appears nowhere in the legislation. It is emblematic of much of the justifications for bigotry that I see crawling out into the broad light of day in Oklahoma. What it’s really about is any discussion of systemic racism, that’s how CRT is being used and mischaracterized. It’s an attempt to limit, to stifle, the kinds of discussions that we need to be having in our schools.

I, and I think a lot of teachers, had to do a cost benefit analysis here. In my mind, it wasn’t a matter of if the law was going to target me, it was when, because I’m doing my job.

This is a persistent pattern from Oklahoma legislators. They don’t want these conversations happening. They don’t want critical thinkers, they want American exceptionalism and this whitewashed version of history that does not require them to interrogate their own privilege. That’s dangerous when you’re the one in charge.

Are you a teacher who wants to discuss new restrictions in your district or state? You can contact Paul Blest at paul.blest@vice.com.

What are some of the texts you’re seeing objections to?

For me, it’s almost exclusively young adult fiction. I think part of that is the accessible language—Shakespeare is just as profane as The Hate U Give, but he writes in a way most people don’t understand [the profanity].” In the past I’ve had The Rest of Us Just Live Here, The Hate U Give.

I once had a parent state to me [a few years ago] that she did not want her student reading The Hate U Give and she specifically cited the profanity and allusions to drug use, and requested her student be given To Kill a Mockingbird instead.

I found that deeply ironic, because in my professional opinion, that’s much more graphic than The Hate U Give. Not only does that feature numerous instances of a racial slur coming from white characters, it also features a rape trial, and Black bodies used as props to further the plot.

I’ve been doing this almost a decade and that’s the only example that springs to mind immediately, but that [objections] is now a daily occurrence.

As someone who’s been teaching for years, are these complaints about material new to you?

Oklahoma is a deeply conservative state, we pretty much have single-party rule here. I think every teacher, especially high school English teachers, have weathered one book-related challenge or another, but I can say within the last year or so I have seen those assaults on our educators from the wider community intensified exponentially.

I think the environment that teachers find themselves in today is 100 percent stoked by state leadership, which has been very clear about their intentions for public education. Parents are being used by state leadership for their anti-public school school choice agenda. [Parents] need to be aware of that.

The one thing I would say to parents about what is happening right now is your teachers, our teachers are not the enemy. I’ve been called an indoctrinator, a woke leftist, a groomer, a pedophile, all within the last several months. Parents are being manipulated. Just because you object to the contents of a specific text does not give you the right to restrict access from other students.

Given all of this, do you see yourself staying in education?

I do. I’m not looking for a fight, I’m not trying to be a martyr or anything, but the state has let our students down. It’s violated their rights and challenged their fundamental humanity if they don’t check a certain box. And if the state isn’t going to stand for those students, who else is going to do it?

I can’t call myself an English teacher, those degrees mean nothing if I don’t raise the alarm when it comes to efforts to censor and silence perspectives that have been historically marginalized. Because lord knows they’re not going to be able to find other teachers. We don’t have any.

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