Arizona just cannot be not crazy. Via
Think Progress, the latest is
SB 1467, a measure to
protect Arizona's school children from learning anything interesting or useful curtail educators' speech, including what books they can teach. Educators, at all levels, would be fined, suspended or ultimately fired for what they say in
or out of the classroom.
Those punishments would be levied against teachers who “engage in speech or conduct that would violate the standards adopted by the Federal Communications Commission concerning obscenity, indecency and profanity if that speech or conduct were broadcast on television or radio.” Note that that restriction isn't limited to public speech or conduct.
Broadcast indecency, as defined by the FCC includes “language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities.”
Taken to its very poorly drafted extreme, the new Arizona bill would mean teachers couldn't go to the bathroom, even at home. Never mind all the books (the dictionary?) that would be banned from Arizona classrooms. Hmmm ... maybe Arizona legislators find an advantage in nurturing a new crop of really poorly educated future voters.