In this small Illinois town, beware the book police

May 19, 2023 1 min read

By Jordan Howell
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

Excerpt: An Illinois teacher is out of a job after a group of parents accused her of “child grooming” for including an LGBTQ-themed book in a reading assignment for eighth grade students in the town of Heyworth. The book is one of nearly a hundred of all different subjects and themes provided to students back in March as part of the assignment, and Heyworth Chief of Police Michael Geriets seized dozens of books during his sprawling, weeks-long investigation.

After meeting with the aggrieved parents, however, it was Chief Geriets himself who contacted the principal and said he was “officially looking into the allegations” and “was proceeding with a fact-finding investigation to determine whether or not a crime was actually committed.”

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