A South Texas school district received a request to remove 676 books from its libraries

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McALLEN — On May 17, with just one week to go until the end of the school year, the superintendent of the South Texas Mission school district received an email with a list of 676 books a group of local pastors believed were “filthy and evil.”

The email came from the personal assistant of Pastor Luis Cabrera, who leads a church in Harlingen, about 30 miles east of the Mission school district.

The email was clear. Cabrera and “the community” wanted them removed.

The email cited state law, House Bill 900, that requires vendors to rate their books and materials for appropriateness, based on the presence of sex depictions or references, before selling them to school libraries.

Despite that law being blocked by a federal appeals court, then-superintendent of the Mission school district, Carol G. Perez, replied within five minutes that the district would check to see if they had the books to remove them.

Later that evening, Deputy Superintendent Sharon A. Roberts asked the district's director for instructional technology and library services, Marissa I. Saenz, to look into removing them.

"Can you prioritize researching these books to ensure we remove them from the school libraries? Can your IT coaches help you track the location of the books to expedite this request?" Roberts wrote in an email.

The emails, which The Texas Tribune obtained through an open records request, offer a window into how close the 14,500-student district was to removing a trove of books over the summer break. It also illustrates the continued pressure — public and private — school leaders in every corner of the state face over access to books that discuss race, religion and LGBTQ+ themes.

School district and community libraries have been inundated with requests since 2020, following the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests following George Floyd’s death. The public backlash started in the suburbs of Dallas. But communities large and small have wrestled with these questions.

Prior to the May 17 email, Cabrera had made similar requests to other school districts in the Rio Grande Valley. He spoke during public comment at several school board meetings last spring. Cabrera was following, in part, the lead of an organization called Citizens Defending Freedom.

Established in 2021, the nonprofit empowers “citizens to defend their freedom and liberty, and place local government back into the hands of the people.” Until recently, most of its work had been in North Texas counties.

Now at the dawn of a new school year, a coalition of Rio Grande Valley faith leaders are denouncing the effort to remove books from South Texas school libraries.

The McAllen Faith Leaders Network, a group of religious leaders in the upper Rio Grande Valley, wrote a letter to local school districts after hearing about the Mission school district’s “knee jerk response” to the Christian conservative group’s request.

The local faith leaders' open letter had specifically taken issue with the inclusion of "Anne Frank’s Diary" on the book list. A spokesperson for Citizens Defending Freedom, Dan Thomas, clarified that that title referred to the graphic novel, an adaptation of "The Diary of Anne Frank."

This month, seven members of the McAllen Faith Leaders Network signed the letter, which called for a separation between religious organizations and public entities.

"We don’t believe that a religious organization should exert decision making power over our public schools or any public body," the religious leaders said.

Rabbi Nathan Farb of Temple Emanuel in McAllen said in an interview with The Texas Tribune that this coalition does not have a political agenda and members of the group often disagree politically and on other topics.

"We thought it was important as faith leaders to speak up and let our educators know that this individual was not speaking on behalf of all faiths, not speaking on behalf of all Christians, was not representing the religious voice of the entire Valley."

Rev. Joe Tognetti of St. Mark United Methodist Church in McAllen said limits on what is accessible to schoolchildren can be appropriate. However, the process to determine which books are appropriate should be determined among parents, students and teachers — not a national conservative nonprofit.

Ultimately, the Mission school district did not remove any books, the district told the Tribune late last week.

A few days after the district received the request to remove the books, Saenz, the library director, replied she would review the list against the district’s collection to ensure any books that did meet the standards set in state law were weeded out.

However, Saenz noted that Cabrera appeared to misunderstand the extent of state law and pointed out that some of the books on the list might not be sexually explicit.

For books that do not meet the criteria in state law, Saenz said board policy states only parents, students 18 years or older, an employee or a resident of the school district can challenge the appropriateness of books.

The school district assured that no books had been reconsidered, restricted, or removed at this time.

"Mission CISD understands the concerns that have been raised regarding this situation," a district spokesperson said in a statement. "We remain committed to meeting the educational needs of our students within the district."

Mission was not the only school district to receive requests to remove books last spring. At a May 7 meeting, Cabrera threatened to sue the Brownsville school district if it did not remove certain books.

The district, which serves about 38,000 students, removed five books from its shelves, according to a May 24 email from the district’s chief operations officer to the superintendent.

Cabrera had just begun his partnership with Citizens Defending Freedom when he began contacting Rio Grande Valley school districts, according to Thomas, the spokesman for the citizens group. The group did not supply the list of books and Thomas said the manner in which Cabrera had approached the school districts was not their usual process.

Cabrera did not respond to a request for comment.

Thomas said they typically take action when people within school districts reach out to them with their concerns.

Thomas also argued that they were not exerting decision-making power on school districts, as the local faith leaders had accused, by trying to remove "vulgar" books.

"Our position is simple," Thomas said. "We would like school libraries to contain books that have educational value. We do not think it's appropriate to have vulgar books with no educational value in public school libraries."

Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.

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