A Florida dad is speaking out after a local school board cut his microphone off for reading a “pornographic” book he found in the school’s library.
Bruce Friedman, a local dad and chapter president of No Left Turn in Education, told Fox News Digital that he was attempting to expose materials the school offered when he spoke to the school board.
“These books are so vile that reading any excerpt that I captured will end this interview,” Friedman told reporters following his attempt to read the materials at a June 30 board meeting for Clay County School District.
The education activist is a dad to a teen boy in the district and said he will do whatever it takes to protect his son from “groomers and pedophiles and twisted sick people that think these… books…are okay to present to a child.”
“I’m going to read things; if there’s children watching, cover their ears,” Friedman said at the meeting.
When speaking to Fox News Digital Friedman said, “Somebody failed drastically in their mission to protect children.”
“As soon as I announced that I was going to read from some books that parents…found in the public school libraries that are clearly pornographic, [they] had the mic cut off,” the Florida dad went on.
One of the books in question was called, “Lucky,” by Alice Seabold. The book tells the story of a college girl who was raped, including details of the attack.
The book was included in the Destiny Discover online library software in Fleming Island High School and Orange Park High School in Clay County, according to Fox News.Â
“I’m going to stop you right there, sir,” Friedman was told when he announced the book he would be reading an excerpt from. “Turn off his microphone, please,” a board member said.
When the Florida dad questioned why he couldn’t read what was submitted for the children of the district to read, he was told it was an issue with the meeting being live-streamed.
“The problem is, sir, that these meetings are broadcast, there are people at home that are watching it on YouTube. There are people that are watching it on community television,” a board member told Friedman.
Friedman was told that reading the “pornography” book over the broadcast violated the law.
“There are federal and state laws that prohibit you from saying the things that you’re getting out to say on television. There are state laws that prohibit in federal communications laws that prohibit you from publishing these things to a child,” a member of the board continued.
The board member went on to tell the concerned parent, “You don’t have the ability at this point to determine who’s watching the television show. And for you to say, ‘everybody cover your ears’ just doesn’t cut it.”
Watch the video below (starting at 30:30):
Friedman’s now 15-year-old son was previously in the New York public school system in kindergarten and first grade which, according to the concerned dad, caused him “considerable harm.”
The education advocate said, “In my experience, people don’t get off the couch until it’s on fire. People don’t work to protect their children until they’re harmed. That is why I’m here – I never shook it off. I never stopped fighting.”
