DEARBORN, Mich. — Michigan parents are suing a school board with the help of a Hillsdale-based lawyer for approving sexually explicit library books. 

Parents with children in Dearborn Public Schools notified the Board of Education of their intent to sue at a Monday night board meeting. Parents, represented by  attorney Daren Wiseley, claim the school board has not allowed parents to remove their children from instruction on explicit topics, and violated parents’ rights to free speech, freedom of religion, and the right to control their childrens’ education. 

“These parents have expressed to you great concerns regarding books depicting/describing pornography, pedophilia, and/or other sexually explicit content in your school library,” the lawsuit reads. “They are also concerned over your sexual education policy, enhanced by your own denial of their rights as parents to be provided with the content taught on the subject, and the denial of their right to ‘opt-out’ of your district’s sexual education program, in direct violation of Michigan law.”

A group of mostly Muslim parents made national headlines after hundreds of them protested sexually explicit books at an October school board meeting. This spurred an internal review of books on library shelves and library websites. The school board announced the results at Monday’s meeting. 

The board approved “Flamer” by Mike Curato and “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold, and restricted “Eleanor & Park” by Rainbow Rowell to high school libraries. The district removed two of the books in question, “Red, White, and Royal Blue” by Casey McQuiston and “Push” by Sapphire. 

The novel “Flamer” contains explicit references to genitalia, masturbation, and sex. Hillsdale County native and mother Stephanie Butler read a graphic passage about masturbation from the novel during public comment at the Monday meeting.

“It is a felony to disseminate sexually explicit matter to minors,” Butler said. “This is the law. I don’t care what the ACLU says. I don’t know if they’ve read these books. We know our rights as parents, and we know that right now our rights are being infringed upon.”

Sebold’s book “The Lovely Bones” describes explicit scenes related to sex, rape, and murder. Parents have expressed concerns the book is pornographic due to its graphic content, according to the Banned Books Project of Carnegie Mellon University.

“The parents had no other choice but to retain legal expertise in this,” Dearborn resident Mike Hacham said. “The problem is that this board did not take any parent or person up here seriously. And as I said at the first board meeting that I went to, we will take this to court, we will pursue legal action. The words that came out of my mouth were not a joke.”

As parents press school boards to remove explicit materials from schools, Michigan Democrats are rallying around LGBTQ books. The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan sent Michigan public school districts a letter encouraging them to “protect the constitutional rights of students and their families by opposing censorship in school libraries” on Nov. 1.

In October, Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer accused Republicans of exploiting the book debate, asking her election opponent Tudor Dixon: “Do you really think books are more dangerous than guns?”

“This is not about gay people. This is about children,” one Dearborn father said. “What is it going to take for you guys to take the books away? I’m not going to stop coming until these books are removed. We don’t want to opt out, we want the books off the shelf. Nice and simple.”