ALBANY — New York’s public teachers’ union filed several motions Jan. 9-10 in the case of a minister’s continuing attempts to overturn the state Education Department’s decision to leave five books in Clyde-Savannah’s secondary school library.
The plaintiffs are the Rev. Jacob Marchitell and the Wayne County Chapter of Moms for Liberty, which say the books are pornographic and the Education Department overstepped parental rights by leaving them on the shelves.
The motions, including a district request to dismiss the case, will be heard Feb. 14. So far, no judge has been assigned, case records indicate.
New York State United Teachers filed paperwork in State Supreme Court in Albany last week to intervene as a respondent in the matter.
“Were petitioners to be successful in this proceeding, the policies, laws, rules, and regulations upon which NYSUT members rely will be readily replaced at the behest of ill-informed community members and/or partisan organizations,” NYSUT’s most recent brief read.
The union asserted its support — again — for the district’s library specialist, Emilie Bastian. In her own motion, Bastian last week said she should be a respondent, too, since she has a vested interest in the matter as the author of the district’s book policy.
Marchitell and Moms for Liberty initiated an Article 78 proceeding in Wayne County in August, appealing the Education Department’s April decision affirming the school district’s choice to have the books remain in the library. Marchitell and Moms for Liberty contend the books, which include Colleen Hoover’s mega-best seller “It Ends with Us,” are pornographic.
The union previously supported Bastian and another teacher when they brought a complaint to the Education Department regarding the books, which had been removed from the library’s shelves initially at Marchitell’s request. The district’s school board voted to return them before the Education Department could intervene.
Marchitell and Moms for Liberty appealed. Meanwhile, NYSUT filed an amicus brief “opposing the book ban and supporting intellectual and academic freedom.”
State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa dismissed the appeal in April, upholding the decision of the Clyde-Savannah Board of Education to retain the five challenged books in the school library’s collection.
Marchitell and Moms for Liberty are represented by attorneys from the American Center for Law and Justice. They had not returned an inquiry from the Finger Lakes Times as to the upcoming court proceeding.
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