Education secretary censors mom on X for showing he supports 'pornography in school': lawsuit
- by justthenews
- Oct 25, 2024
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Education Secretary Miguel Cardona censored a Rhode Island mother who responded to his criticism of efforts to remove sexually graphic books from public school libraries by posting images from those books on his X account, a First Amendment lawsuit claims.
The Biden-Harris administration official hid the comment with the Fun Home image posted by Nicole Solas – a frequent bee in the bonnet of the Ocean State's education establishment and public officials, especially Attorney General Peter Neronha, for her public records requests – meaning that other X users couldn't see it unless they clicked "hidden replies," she alleges.
He did the same when Solas, also a lawyer, posted an image from another book frequently targeted for removal from school libraries, Gender Queer, according to the suit on her behalf by the Center for American Liberty. Both books depict minors performing oral sex on other minors.
Solas "commonly interacts with the accounts of public officials on X in connection with her public advocacy concerning the sexualization and politicization of public education, especially in younger grades," the suit says.
Her fights in Rhode Island made her a "national figure," with Fox News publishing her editorial in 2022 that challenged the American Library Association's claim that Gender Queer had ever been "banned" and argued that "if there is any censorship related to adult-themed books," it concerns "dissent from the narrative of books being 'banned,'" the suit says.
This summer Solas sued her school district and former board members for allegedly outsourcing intimidation of her to teachers unions, who sued Solas to block her requests for district curriculum and teaching materials related to critical race theory and gender identity.
"The truth is parents don't want pornography in school," Solas said in an X video on the Cardona lawsuit with blurred images from Fun Home, Gender Queer, This Book Is Gay, Flamer, and Let's Talk About It, which have all faced removal campaigns as age-inappropriate books.
Cardona responded to her posts by removing them from "the public forum and hiding the pornography that is in fact in public school," she said. The Department of Education, which "accuses everyone else of censorship, is now censoring me because I disagreed" that such removal from school libraries is censorship.
Solas told Just the News that she blurred the Fun Home image in her comment but not the Gender Queer image in her comment the next day, both hidden by Cardona. They appear as such in the lawsuit, but the Center for American Liberty, led by GOP superlawyer Harmeet Dhillon, blurred all images in her video, she said.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set off a legal stampede against public officials on social media in 2020 when it banned then-President Trump from blocking his critics on the social media platform then known as Twitter, deeming his massively popular account a "public forum" because he used it "as a primary vehicle for his official communications … many of great national importance."
Inexplicably, Cardona didn't touch Libs of TikTok's comment with "dozens of pornographic images from school books widely reported as 'banned books'" even though it "contained far more pornographic images," expressed the same disagreement and was far more widely seen than her comment because of the account's millions of followers, the Solas suit says.
She assumes her first comment would have gotten higher traffic if not hidden because her second reply that called out Cardona out for censoring her, which he didn't hide, received three times as many views, according to the suit.
Solas said she wouldn't have even known her comment was hidden without other X users alerting her because X doesn't notify users when that happens.
"Secretary Cardona knew or should have known" his two actions against her comments amount to "unconstitutional censorship" because hidden comments are “moved to a separate page," according to the 20-page suit.
Cardona hid replies from two others to his original Sept. 17 post, one of whom also posted Gender Queer images. He didn't hide anyone but Solas when she posted more Gender Queer images in response to his Sept. 18 post that asked why anyone wouldn't want "diversity," though many other "replies contain the same viewpoint or imagery," the suit says.
Solas suspects the federal official is targeting her "because of her high profile, her reputation among people interested in this debate, and her past activism on this issue."
The suit demands a ban on Cardona engaging in "viewpoint-based exclusion or censorship of posts" by Solas or others "by blocking posts, deleting or hiding posts, or restricting users from being able to comment," calling it a violation of her constitutional right to "petition the government for grievances."
The Department of Education did not respond to Just the News queries Thursday.
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