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Oklahoma teacher is reprimanded, resigns for promoting BPL’s anti-censorship program
English teacher Summer Boismier placed a QR code directing students to the "Books Unbanned" program in response to book banning
Not everything that happens in Brooklyn stays in Brooklyn: An Oklahoma teacher was suspended and subsequently resigned from her position after she promoted a Brooklyn Public Library program that’s aimed at combatting book bans.
Summer Boismier, an English teacher in Norman, Oklahoma displayed a QR code in her classroom directing her pupils to BPL’s anti-censorship Books Unbanned program, which began in April as a “response to an increasingly coordinated and effective effort to remove books tackling a wide range of topics from library shelves.” People aged from 13 to 21 years can access BPL’s e-library for free.
Apparently, directing kids to the program was too controversial for Boismier’s school district. She was “removed from her classroom” earlier this week, according to KOKH-TV, because it violated an Oklahoma law thats clamps down and restricts “classroom materials,” such as books, that makes reference to “discriminatory principles,” such as systemic racism and LGBTQ issues.
Boismier displayed the QR code with the a sign saying “books the state doesn’t want you to read” that directed kids to sign up for the BPL-backed program.
“In response to unfounded calls from state leadership for widespread censorship, I did share a library-linked QR code with my students. Immediately after this, I was removed from my position and placed on leave,” Boismier told the Fox affiliate from Oklahoma City.
On Tuesday, she resigned from her position at Norman High School in protest of the law and book banning (currently on the high school’s homepage is a letter from the principal, titled “It’s a Great Day to be a Tiger!”). She blasted the law, a.k.a. HB 1775, for creating an “impossible working environment for teachers and a devastating learning environment for students.”
BPL said in a statement to Brooklyn Magazine that 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,” a BPL library spokesperson said.
