Yet another pornographic ‘children’s book’ riles parents, this time at a Penfield School District board meeting in Rochester, NY. Fox News reported that the book, The Rainbow Parade, promotes the LGBT lifestyle, gay pride parades, and “shows nudity and bondage-style fetish attire.” When outraged parents objected, board members “shut down the school board meeting early.” The board chair claimed no one had objected to the book and that there are “procedures in place” for such complaints. But after repeated attempts to voice their concerns via emails and phone calls failed to elicit a response, the parents refused to be put off. Mom Jenny Sulliver, whose 10-year-old daughter brought the book home, told Fox that she and other parents had no recourse but to attend the school board meetings in person. She said many parents “couldn’t believe” the book was available to children in grades K-5. “Emails and calls are ignored; they try to deflect and change the narrative; they don’t answer any questions,” Sulliver said. She pledged that parents will continue to speak out and demand answers from school officials. “They are not going to deny us our freedom of speech; they should be brought up on charges, quite honestly,” she added. “The school district is giving lewd materials to children; this is exactly what is happening, and they should be held accountable.” Libs of TikTok posted on X that the developments in the Penfield School District constitute “a big scandal,” and asked rhetorically why the school board is “ignoring parents’ concerns over their children being exposed to pornographic material at school.” The post noted that The Rainbow Parade’s author, Emily Neilson, “loved going to pride parades as a kid with her moms and her queer family.”

Author and Manhattan Institute senior fellow, Christopher Rufo, described how the Trump Administration’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), could strike a blow for serious reform of the Department of Education. In his weekly email communication to subscribers, Rufo explained that he recently made public “material from an ongoing investigation into ideological corruption at the Department of Education and its sprawling NGO network.” He contends that this information paints “a damning picture of the department’s reigning ideologies.” Rufo’s materials include a video in which a Department of Education-funded NGO spokesperson argued that public-school educators should destigmatize child “sex work,” for “LGBTQ+ survival,” for “queer and trans people of color” and especially for “LGBTQ+ women of color” for purposes of their ability to obtain income. It also discusses “adultism,” which essentially means that educators should not discourage LGBTQ+ youth from sex work and other forms of deviancy. In another presentation, “activists within a Department of Education-affiliated NGO claimed that babies develop racial biases and begin ‘attributing negative traits’ to nonwhite races by age five.” Rufo also provided a clip “from an NGO that had received an $8 million grant to promote the idea that America is a ‘racialized structure of power, privilege, [and] oppression.’” Rufo explained that within hours of his posting this material “the Department of Education announced that it had canceled the grants, totaling $350 million, for the Equity Assistance Centers and Regional Education Laboratories that had been organizing such trainings.” Rufo quoted Elon Musk on X commenting: “So many situations like this ...” adding, “funding for racist baby training is canceled.”

Critics charge that Texas A&M university sponsored a trip for faculty and graduate students “to attend a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) conference” that explicitly excluded white and Asian students. The Daily Caller reported that, according to its website, the “PhD Project’s Annual Conference is intended for individuals who ‘Identify as Black/African American, Latinx/Hispanic American, or Native American/Canadian Indigenous.’” Texas A&M is a taxpayer-funded university but claims it is not violating anti-discrimination laws or the state’s 2023 ban on “school-sponsored DEI programs” by supporting restricted student attendance at the conference. The sponsoring organization claims “its purpose is to increase diversity and equity in doctoral programs and uses findings from a not-yet released study that claims the practice of racially gerrymandering student and faculty representation in programs is ‘not just ethical, it’s evidence-based.’” The Daily Caller writes that despite state bans, “DEI initiatives continue to run rampant at many state universities across the country....” But, the authors continue, “many DEI programs are beginning to crumble at prominent schools after studies revealed the initiatives may increase racial tensions and fail to increase diversity and overall student outcomes.”

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