Dr. Duke Pesta, a tenured professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, executive director of Freedom Project Academy, writer, speaker, and host of the Dr. Duke Show, has a lot to say about the lack of academic education and the prevalence of comprehensive sex education in public schools.

“LGBT education is required in the now politicized school system,” Pesta asserted on his radio show, “which is high on lower-level standards, directed by the federal government, and which embraces collectivism and one-size-fits-all education.” Pesta cited Oregon and Colorado as examples of where teaching comprehensive sex education to young children is happening whether parents want it or not.

“West coast schools,” he contends, “which cannot educate kids to read or do math at grade level despite all the money we have thrown at public education, are teaching sex in geography class, in civics class, in English class, math class, and physical education class. They are quite literally spending hours every day teaching kids about homosexuality, transgenderism; sexualizing your kids in every subject area.” In 2023, this teaching has permeated schools in most other states as well.

Six states have passed laws mandating LGBTQ+ inclusive curriculum in the public schools, including California, Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, and Oregon. The Nevada law, which passed in June 2021, goes so far as to require the indoctrination “starting in kindergarten.” In contrast, five states, including Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas have laws forbidding such teaching.

Another pornographic library book

More recently in Pesta’s home state of Wisconsin, a book titled Let’s Talk About It is showing up in middle school libraries and being recommended for kids ages 13 and up. On the cover, the book bills itself as “The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human.”

On his Dr. Duke Show, Pesta said the book “not only encourages sex to kids, but kink on the internet,” and described it as pornography containing “graphic descriptions” with “cartoon images” of sexual acts. His guest on this episode, Vicki McKenna, a former Marxist turned conservative media personality and host of her own Vicki McKenna Show, observed that Pesta could not “put up screen shots of the book” to show his audience because the content is “that graphic.”

Incredibly, Let’s Talk About It describes, as McKenna put it, “the necessity of kids utilizing ‘kink porn’ and even paying to look for ‘pornographic influencers’ online for guidance....” She added: “I don’t know what it’s going to take to get people to recognize that this is ubiquitous, this is everywhere ... this is in the schools ... it’s what education is — radical sexuality — and even includes implementing vulgarity into English lessons.”

Pesta showed a video clip of a local NBC news affiliate’s report on Let’s Talk About It, which stated that after a review by a local committee of school librarians was determined appropriate to remain on school library shelves in the “teen” collection. A parent had complained to the school board about the book saying, “If that book were in my school, I would by law have to report it,” presumably because of the intensely obscene content, which includes playing with excrement and use of bodily fluids during sexual activity. A former local official requested the review following parent complaints.

The news story failed to mention or show these extreme aspects of the book, including the graphic visuals, and suggested that parents should be monitoring what their children are reading or viewing. However, as Pesta noted: “So parents are in charge of what their kids watch or read, but we’re going to keep [this book] in the school library so middle schoolers can check it out without their parents knowing?”

McKenna added: “By the way, if [parents] speak up and say ‘you’d better tell me if you’re trying to groom my kid,’ the school will say, ‘no, you’re not in charge. Children of 13 years and older have specific rights.’” She advises parents and concerned citizens to access the book for themselves if they have any doubts about the content, “because that news station was not permitted, nor would they have chosen, to show the images that we can’t show either.”

Playing devil’s advocate, Pesta pointed out that the librarians did at least admit the book “might not be to your taste,” which he called “unbelievable.” He added: “We’ve said on this show many times that as bad as the teachers can be, as bad as the principals and superintendents can be, there is no more radically dangerous group in education today than librarians. They are more likely to look you in the eye and lie. They say parents have this right [to oversee what their children read], but only if they approve. If they don’t, suddenly none of it matters.”

McKenna agrees that these objectionable books are being chosen by the librarians and by the teachers who use them in class. They are “rubber-stamped” by superintendents who are being advised to do so by the state department of education, at least in Wisconsin, and doubtless in other states as well. “If you complain about it,” McKenna says, “you’re a problem ... the lavender mafia, the ‘glitter cult’ will descend on your life if you’re one of those who wants to stand up to this.”

Both McKenna and Pesta insist that “everyone is affected” by the intrusion of these deviant books and sex ed lessons in the public schools. Conservatives denounce the fact that when parents object to pornographic books and demand that they be removed from school library shelves, they are accused of book banning, even as their microphones are cut off during school board meetings because board members find the content too obscene to be read aloud.

Sex assignments in English class

As Pesta has pointed out, assignments in other disciplines, such as English classes, have also been sexualized. He described an assignment administered in a grade 10 English class in the Eau Claire, Wisconsin public schools. “It’s a gender identity and sexual orientation worksheet that the kids have to fill out in order to complete the assignment,” Pesta explains. “Students can’t escape these assignments; they can’t ‘opt out’ of English class.”

Pesta said that for this assignment, the students had to “know what every letter means in LGBTQ.” They had to define “coming out” as “the process of accepting human sexual identity, so in other words, the mainstreaming of homosexuality and transgenderism is simply accepting without any question what and whatever people say they are, and it goes on and on and on.” He lamented that this is what students are doing in English classes instead of reading Shakespeare or the great classics, or even “learning how to read actual books.”

McKenna agrees that this type of instruction counts as “English” instruction today. She explains:

• They’re going to learn that gender is a social construct. They are going to learn about pronouns. They are going to learn about radical sexuality; that “coming out” means accepting.... They will learn that sex and gender are different things, and that your gender is whatever you say it is regardless of your biological sex. Your gender is your identity and it is primary. Nothing regarding sexuality or gender is going to be described in biological terms any longer, which is why, when you ask a Progressive what is a woman, they can’t answer the question.

McKenna knows from experience of what she speaks. Progressives have been taught “in their Maoist struggle sessions,” she says, “that the idea of biology is supremacist; it is colonialist,” and that biological truth is merely “a vestige of the patriarchy.” Therefore, it must be deconstructed and rejected in order to “complete the revolution.”

Pesta adds that as a university professor, he is painfully aware of the lack of reading skills of young people, that their “attention spans” are short, and that their comprehension levels are “really low,” which makes it easier for even the most bizarre ideologies to take hold.

Fortunately, the number of parent activists and pro-parent groups continues to rise, and more and more children are being pulled from the public schools. (See the “Freedom Project Academy” sidebar in this article for information about one of the many educational alternatives available to parents.)

Want to be notified of new Education Reporter content?
Your information will NOT be sold or shared and will ONLY be used to notify you of new content.
Click Here

Return to Home PageEducation Reporter Online - August 2023