Oklahoma teacher resigns after encouraging high school students to access banned books containing ‘pornographic’ scenes

A high school English teacher in Oklahoma resigned after being accused of instructing her students to access inappropriate books via a QR code. 

The questionable behavior came to light after one of the students came home from her first day of honors English at Norman High School and told her mom about what happened, according to a Fox News report. 

The concerned mom, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation against her children, relayed her daughter’s description of what took place. When student came into the class, they noticed teacher Summer Boismier had red paper covering the walls with the statement, “Books the state doesn’t want you to read.”  

When students asked about the decorations, Boismier reportedly said it was about “censorship … because of the bigots in our government.” She then instructed the students to scan a QR code to access a list of banned books, the mother says. 

One of the book promoted in the list is “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe, a book which depicts sexual acts and contains discussions of masturbation. 

The list is part of Brooklyn Public Library’s “Books Unbanned” website, created in response to states and individual school districts that have begun removing questionable materials from school libraries. 

In Oklahoma, Gov. Kevin Stitt signed House Bill 1775 into law last year, restricting how racial and sexual content can be taught in public schools and universities in the state. 

A spokesperson for Norman Public Schools told Fox News that Boismier and other teachers were simply concerned about censorship in light of the bill’s passage.  

And even though the spokesperson indicated an expectation that Boismier would return to work, the teacher instead decided to resign, saying the state’s law made it difficult to teach. 

As for the mother blowing the whistle, her issue is the sexual explicitness of some of the books. 

“This is not a political matter. This has nothing to do with CRT, history, whitewashing, the LGBTQIAP+ community, the BIPOC community, it has nothing to do with any of that,” she told Fox News, adding that she does not support banning books, like Huckleberry Finn, which have literary value.  

“These books that are being disseminated to our children have nothing to do with educational content, or literary content. It is pushing pornographic material on our children,” she said. “Last time I checked, disseminating pornographic material to our children is illegal.”  

She also says many parents across the country are likely unaware of what is being taught to their children and strongly encourages other concerned parents to ask questions, do research and be involved in their children’s education. 

“People are simply not aware of this,” she said. “They’re not aware of actually what’s going on, and who has access to their children.”