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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.

Reference

Read the emails that show the Mission school district in South Texas handled a request to remove more than 600 books from its libraries.

(5.7 MB)