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In Idaho, one recent high school
graduate openly challenged her school superintendent and protests

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during graduation. Here to lead our
discussion is Sydney Davis, Junior Junior Sidney,

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what is going on in the Great
Air? Quotes Mormon State of Idaho?

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Yes, Idaho is being shook up
right now. In West Ada school

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District, at an art school,
a student is stirring up trouble by encouraging

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people to read literature that the school
district actually wants banned and has banned since

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December. And she wants them to
read it before banning it, which I

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don't think sounds like a lot to
ask, but that's her main point is

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she wants to at least have the
adults making these decisions read that literature before

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deciding that it doesn't belong in the
school district. So she brought a book

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that was recently banned. It was
the graphic novel version of Let's see hear,

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Oh, That's why I lost my
fun A Maid's Tale? He and

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mesale. Yes, Yes, yes, it was the graphic novel version of

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A Handmaid's Tale. And she walked
up on stage and she handed it to

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the superintendent. The superintendent rejected it. He did not want it, so

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she set it on the floor,
and before she handed it to him,

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she showed it to the audience a
little bit, and then she just handed

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it to him. He rejected it. She laid it on the floor,

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and she walked off. And so
now there's a debate going on where the

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school district says she took all the
attention away from everybody else who was graduating

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that day, and that's the problem. And everybody else is saying, we

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don't think that's true. Students who
are there that day say we don't think

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that's true. If you watch the
video, it's on TikTok, it's on

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YouTube. She did not say anything
to the man. She did not make

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a statement, She did not do
anything outlandis. She literally handed him a

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book. If you weren't close enough
to see what it was, you wouldn't

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have even known. He rejected it. And I why argue that him rejecting

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it was actually more attention grabbing than
her handing him the book. And it's

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a he said, she said,
they said she said, versus the video

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of the event. Basically, well, she did get critiqued by people saying

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that it was excessive. I think
I'm on the side of the people who

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thought it was excessive. I don't
really see that this was necessary. And

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you know, Eli, I wanted
to get your thoughts on that. I

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mean, was she right for doing
this or did she need to do this?

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What are your thoughts? I mean, I would say need is a

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strong bird, but I think she's
right to I think that she said it

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herself, that her walk across the
stage of graduation is her moment, and

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that's what she chose to do with
it, and I think that's appropriate.

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I think that I don't think that
it was all that disruptive. I can

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see how. I mean, I
think for a more effective protest, perhaps

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a different method might have been,
you know, more effective, But I

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I I think I would I don't
think I would agree with you. I

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think that I think she was in
I think I don't see any issues as

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what she did if I'm being honest. Well, I all right, so

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she says her goal was never to
be disruptive or mess up the ceremony,

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but I think that that's not true. In fact, you know, how

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did this even get on the internet. I mean, she didn't film it

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herself. She must have, you
know, had somebody film it. She

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showed the book, right, and
I think she did, in a way

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do something that didn't really need to
be done. I mean, she's got

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twenty four million views. In this
clickbait society, I think she knew exactly

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what she was doing. And in
this very fifteen minutes of fame society that

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we live in, everybody can become
an overnight celebrity on the Internet. I

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mean, that's why us three or
here, isn't it. But no,

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seriously, I think that she took
away from the validity of this ceremony.

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And before I get into that,
I just want to see if Sydney has

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anything on that. I mean,
is there any is there any validity to

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what I just said at all?
So I think two things can be true

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at once. I think what she
did can be unnecessary, and I think

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what she did also was not much
of anything that with the exception of for

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the split second turning the book showing
the audience, it wasn't one of these

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she was, you know, Vanna
Whiting. She literally just showed the book,

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handed it to him. If anything, and obviously we none of us

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know what we're going to do in
the moment. But if anything, I

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still think that him shaking his head, crossing his arms, and allowing her

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to lay the book at his feet
was much more memorable then. What did

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she give him? I don't know. She gave him a present. Oh,

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look, she gave him a present. She gave him a book that

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must be her favorite teacher or something. You know. I also think if

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you, I don't. I don't
know what your situations were back in the

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day, but I remember about three
minutes of my high school graduation. I

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don't remember how people walked across the
stage. I don't remember what they were

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doing. I'm sure somebody did something, you know, like wore a tiger

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tail or something like that. You
know, there's always a high school student

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doing something to call attention. I
don't think what she did was harmful.

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I don't think it helps anything.
I don't think it'll change anything. But

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I do agree that if you're going
to ban literature from a school, well

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you should read the book. Yes, right, And it goes back to

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that whole complain all you want about
who's in office, how bad a movie

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was, how offensive a music video
was, after voting, watching the video,

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hearing the song, reading the book
that So, while while in one

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hand, yeah, sure, we
live in a clickbait society where everybody gets

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a fifteen minute a slice of fame, we also live in a society where

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people can just tell kids they're not
allowed to read books, which means,

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guess what, they're immediately going to
go on Amazon and buy that book for

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a dollar used. Right, So, if you don't want kids to read

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a book, I don't know if
you've ever heard of the barbar streisand effect.

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Have you ever heard of that?
I don't think so. So barbar

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Streisand got really upset that her the
photos of her house were taken by paparazzi

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and published. Nobody gave a fuck
until she got upset about it. Then

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everybody was googling what her house looked
like. Right, and so everybody who's

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ever spent ten seconds with teenagers,
No, if you don't want them to

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do something, just don't mention it. She would never have read that book

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otherwise, I don't think. Well, listen, I'm two things I want

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to bring up because I'm having a
little bit of an O shit moment because

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I do remember my high school graduation
and I threw my arms up as I

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walked across the stage like I won
the Super Bowl, and I'll never forget

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my dad jumping up for joy in
the background. That was a huge moment

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for me. But you know what, that was my moment, and I

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did what was right for me.
But I didn't take away from anybody else.

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Now, let me let me explain
something. My last name starts with

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the letter S. My whole life, I have been watching the entire alphabet,

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you know, go before me and
do things. Especially I did the

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same thing in high school, college
graduation, and I'd say, oh,

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well that person, you know,
they were the valedictorian. Oh, that

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person was on the lacrosse team.
Oh I knew that guy. You know,

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we were in history class together,
et cetera. Whatever. And then

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this person gets up, and then
for the rest of the time, people

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are going, can you see that? I mean, Sidney, you just

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alluded to it, like people are
like, oh, what'd she hand them?

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You know it was and it became
a deal. Well, what was

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graduation like for the one person that
went up and got their diploma? After

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she did that, Eli reflections on
that. That is a good point.

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And after you kind of started to
explain it. I see your point of

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view on it. The person,
it would be difficult to follow that.

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I, like Sidney, only remember
like I have like a three second memory

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from my graduation that I can think
of right now, and it was like

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sitting in the chairs waiting like for
somebody to finish speaking so I could go

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get my diploma. It wasn't even
the walk itself. But the person that

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just graduated, that's not the case. That person who just graduated thinks that

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that's going to be a significant moment
for the rest of their life and really

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really feels that right now. So
I'd say I think that you have a

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very valid point for that. Immediately
next person, or maybe even the second,

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maybe the third half, that that
little event people were talking about that

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rather than listening to or you know, watching those people graduate at the same

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time. I think I also agree
with Sydney that it was the superintendent's display

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of like resting it. If he
had just taken it, he had a

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suit on, he could take it, put it in one of his pockets

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and move on. Yeah, and
that would have I think, been a

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lot less significant of a moment,
and probably it wouldn't even we probably wouldn't

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be talking about it, say you
might, so I would argue it wasn't

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a thing until the video went around
later after graduation was over. I would

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actually be curious how many people even
could see what happened, because it looked

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like a large auditorium, and even
when you turned the book. I've watched

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the video, which is it looks
like it was filmed by somebody on like

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the very front row, or maybe
there was a cameraman filming the whole thing.

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I don't think anybody would have even
known what happened if the video hadn't

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gone around, especially if he had
just taken the book, it would have

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looked like she just gave him a
gift at graduation. But him going hmmm

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probably made a lot of people go, what just happened? I don't know,

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I'll ask later or something, you
know, But I might argue that

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the video that came out later would
be a distraction. But by then they've

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already walked, students have already walked, And if you think about it,

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maybe everybody did notice. Let's say
in that moment, everybody noticed, and

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I listened in the video to see
if anybody boot or anything. There was

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really a non reaction that person might
actually look great for not doing some shit.

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They get up and they're like,
I'm just going to graduate normally,

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and all the people who are mad
at her are like, thank you for

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being mature. You know, yeah, I definitely agree there. The superintendent

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didn't help his case. In fact, I think he played right into her

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trap exactly, if that's what you
want to call it. So in the

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long term, she probably or actually, let's call it short term, but

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she probably achieved right the bigger message
here. She probably achieved what she was

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looking for because now everybody's looking at
this school and they're saying, well,

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why the heck are they banning these
books in the first place, And now

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that superintendent that district, they have
to answer for these actions. They have

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to justify why they're banning books that
are anti LGBTQ or talk about sex.

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Actually, Sidney, didn't you have
a list of books that you were able

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to recite that were banned in this
school district? Yes? I actually found

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a link that some local news station
had done a list of all the books

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they were banning as of December,
which is when this book was banned,

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and that list includes Wicked like the
musical that's coming out. A book about

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the life and times of the Wicked
Witch in the West, completely fictitious,

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right. Then A Stolen Life by
J. C. Dugard, one of

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the most famous kidnapping victims you know, in the American history. Her autobiography

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is banned in that in that district, which I think is a mistake.

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But they also banned Water for Elephants, Kingdom of Ash And they lumped all

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of these books into a they're all
sexually explicit, which I think is horrific

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to say to JC Duguard. It's
like, oh, by the way,

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sorry, what happened to you is
explicit for people to learn about it in

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high school. But they also made
a statement which I thought was also quite

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like weak in terms of defending their
decision. And I'll just read it really

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quick, so they said. According
to a representative of West Ada School District,

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these books were banned due to what
district personnel characterized as strong explicit content.

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Titles like The Handmaid's Tale and Wicked
were two of the most recent editions

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on the no go list. West
Ada School District released a statement on the

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newest list saying this decision is aimed
at fostering an environment that encourages diverse perspectives,

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which I think it does not.
I think it quite does the opposite,

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while ensuring the protection of our students. Our commitment is to provide a

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spectrum of choices that promote critical thinking
and respectful discourse, fostering a space where

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learning thrives and minds are challenged and
safeguarded. That to me is the statement

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of the school defending why they left
those books in. Well, Eli,

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what is wrong with banning all of
these books? Is there justification one that

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you know we could understand. Well, you and I I think recently talked

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about book banning on the nonprofits and
I are, yeah, book banning or

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book censorship. And what I think
is like after high school, a lot

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of people may not step into a
library again. And and you know,

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sometimes it's depending on where they go
on, but like that is true for

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a lot of people, so that
that's the last place we're going to get

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that information we're going to have access
to, like to those books and those

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libraries. And what's happening is this
information is being restricted. And what I

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said last time is that you need
true information to make good choices about the

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world. And you can't know what
is true information what is good information until

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you learn how to separate the two. And if you're letting some if these

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schools are like, well, we're
we're going to take these out, so

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like we're don't worry about it.
We'll let you know what you need to

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know and what you need to learn
about and just don't worry about the rest.

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And then you get out into the
world and now you have to figure

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out how the rest of the world
works because all of this other stuff was

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kept from And that's the position that
a lot of like adults that I know

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are in, like and you know, even at my age, I'm thirty

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two for me, all the way
down to like people that are just getting

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out of high school and college and
in their early twenties, they're just trying

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to figure out how all these things
about the world work that they were just

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never exposed to. Because like for
Pan America found that there are four two

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hundred and forty unique titles that have
been challenged in the United States, like

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in different libraries, public libraries,
and school libraries in the United States.

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The most challenged books, not surprisingly
having to do with like sexual well being

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and LGBTQ IA plus issues. What
they're doing is they are cultivating the information

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that they want people to know because
they're afraid of what happens if they know

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the rest. And that's what I
think is the most sinister thing about it.

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Yeah, and I can see your
point there. You know, Sydney,

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you had an interesting point I want
to get back to because I think

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it's related. You said that the
justification that they gave was actually a reason

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they left them in. Can you
go ahead and just on that point.

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Yeah, the verbiage that they use
in their justification for why they ban these

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books. The first thing I noticed
when I read it is this is what

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I would say if I was a
librarian defending these books. They say,

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our commitment is to provide a spectrum
of choices that promote critical thinking and respectful

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discourse, fostering a space where learning
thrives and minds are challenged and safeguarded.

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One my body, My choice includes
my brain. So I should not be

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dictated by any government sponsored entity or
educational entity what I can and cannot read.

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I think that's ridiculous. If I
read something and i'm and I have

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nightmares about it, sounds like a
me problem. Right if I read something

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like I love the show sixteen and
Pregnant or whatever like the teen shows,

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none of them, not a single
story has started with I was a virgin

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until I read Wicked, or I
was a virgin until I read you know,

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somebody might say that vampire movie that
came out a few years ago Twilight.

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Nobody's story starts like that. I've
never heard it. I've wasted hours

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of my time watching these types of
shows. And so I think one we

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have a problem where schools are dictating
what kids can read. I think that

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statement alone is the complete opposite of
what they're actually doing, and it's dangerous

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because they're releasing a statement that says
we're fostering this environment where choices are available,

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and then they're doing the opposite.
So I guess from now on,

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we can just say whatever we want
to say we're doing and then do the

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opposite when people don't make us prove
it. And also, I would like

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to point out a couple of statistics
that I found that I thought were interesting.

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So these books were banned in December
twenty twenty three. In December twenty

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twenty three, or by December twenty
twenty three, the most popular television shows

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watched by teenagers on their own time
outside of school were Sex Education, which

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I don't even need to tell you
what that was about, Everything Now,

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which is a show about an eating
disorder, and Riverdale, which is vampires

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and wolves like having sex with each
other and like breaking up. Because they're

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all in high school, so obviously
they're going to be exposed to this content

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either willingly or they're just going to
be in the room when it's playing,

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or they're going to find it on
Netflix. So whose job is it to

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determine what safeguard it means? And
if all they're doing is banning sexual content,

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I think there's a lot of harm
there. One, it's just not

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diverse choices. You can't tell me
I have choices. And then it's kind

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of like we were joking about earlier. You can't tell me I get to

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vote and then only give me like
what you like to vote from and then

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call it choices. And then two, I would argue that that's part of

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the reason why we have such a
lack of sexual education in this country,

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why we're missing because we're not allowed
to read books where we can then go

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home and be like, Mom,
what is like, what are they talking

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about? What is this? What
does this mean? What are they doing?

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And like I said earlier, if
you make a big deal to a

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teenager, they're going to live,
breathe, and die by that being their

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brand from now on. Yeah,
yeah, you know I think that Eli,

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when you said, we've talked about
this before, right, because you

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and I have done a few shows
together, and you mentioned you mentioned the

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article we talked about, and what
was happening was books were being banned and

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there was a bill that was being
passed saying well, the books, the

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books that are going to stay should
have a qualified individual that are allowed to

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decide what can stay and what could
go right, And what I'm seeing here

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is a lack of a qualified individual
or a lack of a quality of a

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coherent justification for why books are being
banned. So so Sydney gave an explanation

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and talked about how hypocritical was and
Eli, I think you were saying essentially

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the same thing, like you know, this is a lack of diversity and

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it targets LGBTQ. Eli, what
trend are we seeing when it comes to

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book banning? Right? Where are
we seeing them banned and what is the

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commonality. So, as I did
mention a little bit ago, the most

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commonly challenged books have to do with
sexual well being an LGBTQIA plus issues.

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So I actually found a list of
the ten most challenged books in twenty twenty

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three. The first one is called
gender Queer. There's one called All Boys

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Aren't Blue? I was challenged for
LGBTQIA content claimed to be sexually explicit.

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There's one called This Book Is Gay, which I think is an amazing title,

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sex Education claim to be sexually explicit, apperaks of being a wallfire Flamer,

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The Bluest Eye, Me and Earl, and The Dying Girl Tricks BILP.

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So what in each of these when
it talks about like in every single

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one of them? Here's one that's
not. But as I'm going down this

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list, there are two on this
list that do not include the words or

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challenged for LGBTQIA plus content. Only
two out of the ten most challenge books.

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So I mean this is ten a
representative of the entire sample of four

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three and forty nine in the second
half of twenty twenty three. No,

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it's an insignificant sample, but I
think it speaks to it a little bit.

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And I was, well, and
I was going to say, it's

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interesting also when you point out that
list wasn't the bluest eye, I could

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be wrong, But if it's the
same book I'm thinking of, wasn't it

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written by an African American woman?
Isn't it like a book about POC by

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POC? And I think it's interesting. It doesn't have any information about it

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here. It's written by Tony Morrison. Yeah, yep, there it is,

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yep. And so I think that's
interesting that that one of the few

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that aren't banned for being lgbt QIA
plus or LGBT supporting is written by a

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black woman. Yeah. Well,
you know, we have seen in Florida,

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for example, the banning of certain
African American history books. We've seen

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different culture history books banned in that
state, but to the broad or commonality,

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we're seeing books banned in highly religious, highly Christian states, highly Christian

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districts. The ironic thing and the
thing that is inconsistent and what these decision

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makers should be held accountable for,
is the fact that the Bible is not

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banned. If you want to talk
about sexual atrocity, we should look to

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the Bible. But then again,
how many Christians actually read it, So

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it's not a surprise to me that
they have no idea what's in it.

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But they love banning books they don't
read, so that's true. That's true. The model