South Carolina dad blasts school district for keeping explicit content in libraries
South Carolina dad David Cook shares why he got into activism against books he deems inappropriate for public school.
South Carolina dad David Cook made headlines for tossing chicken feed during a recent Beaufort County School District board meeting in protest of its reluctance to act on library books he views as inappropriate for school.
"I've appealed to you all repeatedly, and only a few of you have recognized we do not need to keep sexually explicit books in our schools," he said before reaching into a backpack for bags of chicken feed that he proceeded to toss near the sitting board members.
The county Board of Education has since enacted a "no bag" policy, a change implemented following a specially convened July 6 meeting, according to local outlet The Island News. Cook said the change was made to prevent the "chicken feed" incident from happening again.
South Carolina dad David Cook tossed chicken feed before board members at a Beaufort County, South Carolina, school board meeting last month. (Beaufort BOE/The County Channel)
"The only action they've taken was to institute a no bag policy at school board meetings after the June 27 school board meeting, and they've issued me a letter that states that I conducted what was a material disruption of the school board meeting, which when I researched the language, it points towards a criminal statute that's a misdemeanor to disrupt school operations. So I know where they're going with their letter," he told Fox News Digital in an interview Monday.
Cook said he believes the board will not take any further action unless he causes another disruption at a future meeting, but he went on to rail against the district's reluctance to heed his warning about the books for a long time.
"I called them out," he said. "I told them that it's an embarrassment to the community that we would want to have ‘60 Minutes’ broadcast that we have sexually explicit materials in our schools without any knowledge to the parents in the community."
South Carolina's Beaufort County School District came under fire from parents for allegedly ignoring complaints about explicit library books.
Cook referenced a Beaufort County book review process that garnered attention from CBS' "60 Minutes" last month, when seven books came under review and all except the book "Ask The Passengers" by A.S. King were voted to be returned to circulation for grades 9 through 12. "Ask The Passengers" was returned to library shelves without any restrictions, a separate report from The Island News said.
The outlet noted that 97 books were originally pulled from shelves for the process, which has taken months and is ongoing.
"During this time, committees have reviewed 61 books and all except for four have been approved to return to library circulation," the report said.
Under Cook's scrutiny are books containing transgender content – books like Maia Kobabe's "Gender Queer," though it remains unclear whether the book is currently in Beaufort County schools' libraries.
LGBTQ+ themed library books have brought parents to school board meetings in district across the U.S. with complaints that the material is inappropriate for children and teens. (iStock)
"I discovered, in another part of the state, there was a school district that was questioning the book ‘Gender Queer.’ So I basically kind of did a little bit of research and submitted a FOIA request to our school district for a search term, ‘transgender.’ I was just curious what they had, and it came back, I think was about 60 or 70 titles of different books related to transgender. I looked through the list, and I kind of researched things, and I'm like, 'It's kind of weird. Why do we have this in our schools?' But I never challenged anything at that point," he explained.
That took place in November 2021, Cook said, but he came across another book that concerned him in June of last year – "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas, a book inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement that focuses on racial injustice.
"It's a story of a Black man that gets shot by police, but there's language in it that's, it's explicit language, it's obscene language. And that's kind of where my entire story kicks off in regards to reading materials."
CONTROVERSIAL ‘GENDER QUEER’ TOPS LIBRARY GROUP'S LIST OF CHALLENGED BOOKS
"Gender Queer" book by Maia Kobabe remains at the top of parents' list of books that should be banned in public schools. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
However, his advocacy started even before then, back in 2019, when he said his son had an image of a naked woman pop up on his electronic device at school.
"Through no fault of his own, he wasn't trying to look for anything. I think he was looking for race cars or something, and that kind of kicked everything off, and I became far more engaged at that point," he elaborated.
Cook alleged that the district has offered no evidence that explicit materials support learning in any way, and the parents who complained about the 97 titles under review are not being taken seriously.
He said he previously served on two book review committees where, in one instance, he was outvoted four to one as four were educators. In the other, the ruling came out as a 3-3 tie.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Beaufort County School District for comment, but did not receive an immediate response.
Fox News First
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox.
By entering your email and clicking the Subscribe button, you agree to the Fox News Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, and agree to receive content and promotional communications from Fox News. You understand that you can opt-out at any time.