School board member filed police report over book

Memoir tells the author’s story of growing up Black, genderqueer

A memoir that explores race and sexuality has ignited a contentious debate over book banning, with a Flagler County School Board member filing a criminal complaint that accused the district of breaking obscenity laws.

“All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto” is generating national controversy because of its sexual content. The memoir features author George M. Johnson’s reflections on growing up Black and queer.

School Board member Jill Woolbright filed a criminal complaint, telling a deputy that she thought it was “a crime to have the book in the [district’s] media centers” and demanding that the people who put it there be held “accountable.”

The Flagler County Sheriff ’s Office dismissed the complaint Friday, but the community remains embroiled in a heated debate over whether the book should be available in school libraries. It has sparked hours of back-and-forth discussion at school board meetings.

Johnson, who uses the pronouns they/them, said the memoir is geared toward 14- to 18-year-olds. While the work includes descriptions of oral sex, anal sex and masturbation, Johnson said they are in the context of consent, sexual abuse, gender identity, toxic masculinity, emotional trauma and other important issues facing teenagers.

Johnson said the book gives teenagers a roadmap for recognizing and dealing with trauma and abuse, as well as avoiding mistakes the author made growing up.

“My book is 320 pages, and everyone is pigeonholing it based on two excerpts,” Johnson said. “It is important that people realize that this book has a wealth of additional information that young adults will deal with and go through. This is a learning tool introducing heavy topics.”

School libraries should reflect the entire community, including the experiences of LGBTQ and Black youth, Johnson said.

“I am trying to communicate to young adults that I too have been in their shoes,” Johnson said. “I am hoping my book and my words give them the agency to name the things they have been through and prepares them for the things they are going to go through.”

The book was removed from circulation at FlaglerPalm Coast and Matanzas high schools, and a panel is being assembled to review its contents, said Jason Wheeler, a spokesperson for Flagler County Public Schools.

The book was also briefly on the shelves at Buddy Taylor Middle School but was pulled following an internal review that predated Woolbright’s complaint filed with law enforcement, he said.

“We do not currently have a specific date as to when the review process will be complete,” Wheeler said. “All I can say is that a review team is in the process of being assembled and then they will begin their work.”

Investigators with the Sheriff’s Office determined that Woolbright’s complaint did not meet the “threshold of a criminal offense,” Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said in a prepared statement.

Florida law specifies that materials must “lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value” when taken as a whole to be considered obscene.

“The Sheriff’s Office does not determine what material is appropriate for the students of Flagler County,” Staly said.

“All Boys Aren’t Blue” has been challenged for its descriptions of sex, but it’s also garnered literary praise, landing on best-books-ofthe-year lists compiled by Amazon, the New York Public Library and the Chicago Public Library.

Instead of harming teenagers, books with heavy topics give them the tools to understand issues they will face in life, Johnson said.

“It is not that young adults won’t experience this,” Johnson said.

Woolbright did not respond to a phone message and email seeking comment Friday. She told deputies she raised her concerns about the book with the school superintendent Nov. 2.

In a school board workshop Tuesday, Woolbright said she notified law enforcement because she didn’t think the matter was being adequately handled by school officials and felt “statutorily” responsible to report what she considered to be a crime.

“In my opinion, and I am not an attorney, it qualifies as obscenity,” Woolbright said during the meeting. “And if it qualifies as obscenity, it is prohibited.”

Earlier this month, Orange County Public Schools yanked another controversial book from its shelves called “Gender Queer: A Memoir” amid concerns over sexual images.

Johnson said efforts to ban books are only drawing more people to read them.

“Once you tell someone this is forbidden, it only tempts them more to want to read it,” Johnson said. “Their attempts to ban it are only tempting more people to want to read the book.”

sswisher@orlandosentinel. com

Florida A&M University College of Law students will get the chance to see first-hand the roles attorneys can play in and out of the courtroom to fight racial and economic inequality through two new fellowship programs recently launched at the school.

Two racial justice fellows started this fall: Ray Benson, a third-year FAMU Law student, and Cassidy Mauth, a second-year student. They are paired with attorneys from t h e F l o rida Rights Restoration Coalition, which helps people with felony convictions regain their rights, and Florida Rural Legal Services, which fights for farmworkers.

An economic justice fellowship will welcome its first students in January.

The fellowships are part of a Florida Law Schools’ Consortium For Racial Justice, created in response to George Floyd’s killing by a Minneapolis police officer last year, said Mark Dorosin, professor and director of legal clinics and field placements at FAMU Law.

“I think there is a diversity of interests certainly among the students but I think there’s a real core of students who are drawn here particularly because of the mission and the history of this law school and that commitment to social change and to providing resources to excluded communities and residents,” Dorosin said. “That mission and that history is powerful and it really pervades the institution.”

Both Benson and Mauth plan to work in the criminal justice system after law school, Mauth as a public defender and Benson as a prosecutor.

“This may not seem as though it’s along those lines because people have this idea that prosecutors just send people to prison,” Benson said. “... It is important that the prosecutor sees the defendant as a person. It is important that members of the jury see the defendant as a person so that you can get the best solution for the community as a whole, but also for the defendant.”

Mauth envisions herself fighting for people accused of crimes, often forced to defend themselves with limited financial resources.

“I have always been more service-based,” she said. “I think I will end up at a public defender to start because I just think I do prefer the public sector and nonprofits and government jobs versus a private firm.”

Exposing future lawyers to the ways legal rules can encroach on people’s rights is just as important a lesson for the students as the actual work they help with, said Angel Sanchez, who leads the Attorney Assistance Program at FRRC and places fellows with attorneys who supervise their work.

“I don’t even think it’s just a part of the goal,” Sanchez said. “I think it’s as important as the restoration of the voting rights for individuals that they are serving. One of the things that Amendment 4 revealed to people is that the impossible becomes possible when people start seeing the humanity in their neighbors and the ones that have been stigmatized.”

Amendment 4 created a pathway for people who lost their voting rights because of a felony conviction to have those rights restored.

The fellows also worked with Florida Rural Legal Services, an experience both said opened their eyes to the working and living conditions farmworkers often endure.

dstennett@orlandosentinel. com

Mauth

Benson