Take Action Now – Urge Scholastic Books to Stop Selling Sexualized, Pornographic Content in Schools
Can you imagine your elementary-school-aged child or grandchild going to their school’s book fair and finding pornographic material available to purchase and take home? What school would allow this and ask parents to pay for such content?
Scholastic Books, which has sold books to young readers for over 80 years, features sexual and pornographic material in some of the books it sells in schools. It sells them to junior high and high school students and may begin marketing them to elementary students as well.
Please join us in sending a message to Scholastic telling them that selling sexualized, pornographic material in schools is unacceptable and asking them to stop selling pornography to children of any age.
Please fill out the information on this page to sign onto the letter to Scholastic below.
Scholastic Books
President Peter Warnick
557 Broadway
New York, NY 10012
Mr. Warnick,
As a company whose clients are school children and their parents, Scholastic should reconsider the content and type of books it offers for sale at all levels of education.
It was shocking to learn that Scholastic had decided to offer a collection of books that included sexualized and pornographic content to elementary-aged students. It was even more concerning when Scholastic reversed course on its initial plan to allow schools to opt-out of offering this controversial new collection when hosting school book fairs. This happened when certain interest groups in the book industry objected, essentially removing the ability for schools to protect young children from sexualized, pornographic content.
Why would a reputable company like Scholastic side with radical leftists rather than their customers, children and parents? The bigger question is why Scholastic would even consider marketing titles with sexualized or pornographic content to young children in the first place.
It was, however, ever more dismaying to learn that Scholastic already offers, without restriction, a large number of titles with sexual and pornographic content to junior high school and senior high school students. Parents across the nation have taken great exception to a number of these books in school libraries and in school curriculums. Bypassing parents to make such content directly available to children of any age is very concerning.
No responsible company should ever seek to target children for the sale of material that is patently sexual or pornographic. The Constitution guarantees parents the right to direct the upbringing of their children, including their sexual innocence, and Scholastic should support parents in that effort. Furthermore, addiction to pornography can be as harmful as an addiction to hard drugs, and the average age of first exposure to pornography is between seven and 13 years old. Scholastic should not be in the business of lowering that average age of exposure by making pornography available to children and thereby facilitating their addiction and the harms it causes.
I hope Scholastic will reevaluate its decision to include sexualized, pornographic content in its business model and determine to protect children and respect the rights of parents instead.
Sincerely,
