An online “educational” resource that recently triggered controversy for a Colorado school district when parents found it was a portal to pornography has been placed on the “2017 Dirty Dozen List” by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
The resource gave students access to sites that “normalize sexual violence, such as a link to a story depicting the rape of a woman using the barrel of a gun, as well as sites that normalize risky sexual behaviors such as public, anal and group sex,” the NCOSE said.
Dawn Hawkins, executive director of the NCOSE, said in a statement that executives for the company, EBSCO, admitted the problem. She said they were trying to address it but that it would remain on her organization’s “Dirty Dozen” list “until … improvements have been implemented system-wide and verified.”
“EBSCO executives contacted NCOSE on February 21 to express their concern about the sexually explicit content accessible via their databases and share that they are actively working to develop new algorithms and better filtering systems,” she explained.
In the meantime, parents and schools need to be on alert, noted NCOSE, which has posted online a list of videos documenting the easy access to pornography and other objectionable materials from EBSCO.
The admission from EBSCO refuted a defense of the site from the suburban Cherry Creek School District near Denver.
See what American education has become, in “Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians Are Using Government Schools to Destroy America’s Children.”
WND reported in January that parents of a middle school student there charged that the district’s sex-ed program allows students to access pornographic content and images from an educational company’s website while blocking parents from examining the objectionable material.
The parents enlisted the help of an activist group in Massachusetts to address their concerns.
The district called the claim nonsense, citing the opinion of the controversial Southern Poverty Law Center, which slammed the activist organization, MassResistance, as an “anti-gay hate group.” It’s the same SPLC that called Dr. Ben Carson a “hater” for his views on traditional marriage. SPLC also was linked to domestic terror several years ago when a man convicted of attempted mass murder confessed he used the organization’s list of ‘anti-gay hate groups’ to pick a target, the Family Research Council.
The sex-ed dispute arose when the parents, whose names WND is withholding so that their child in the district’s Fox Ridge Middle School is not identified, stumbled upon the pornographic material when they were checking their child’s password access.
Many of the discussion materials and images are not suitable for reproducing by WND, but MassResistance, a pro-family group that has been particularly active in school issues for many years, posted some of it on its website.
The information available to students includes “How to have oral sex,” “How to have anal sex” and “How to have vaginal sex.”
MassResistance said in a report: “We’ve often reported on the dramatic influx of ‘comprehensive sex-ed’ into schools across the country in recent years despite vocal outrage by parents. The graphic sexual content and LGBT tips that schools are pushing at students has been very disturbing for some time now, and is getting much worse.”
The group said children attending middle schools in the Cherry Creek School District “are now being given access to extremely graphic sexual and homosexual pornography, material encouraging them to become sexually and homosexually active, descriptions of ‘sex toys,’ and much more.”
MassResistance founder Brian Camenker confirmed he was independently able to reproduce the results uncovered by the Cherry Creek parents.
He said that when the parents “presented samples of the pornography and other explicit sexual material found on the students’ portal to school officials and board members … the officials did not deny that that it is being made available to the middle school students.”
“They simply do not see a problem with it.”
See the full online report from MassResistance (Be warned that it contains explicit references, images.)
And the officials warned the parents were “breaking school policy” by using their child’s password instead of one designated for parents.
Among the materials that were accessed was a “gay” book described as “Alexander’s big night out at a gay bar leads to hot, but complicated encounter.”
An excerpt from a “short story” also was accessed: “The man f—–like the broken light, ramming his personality through a defective wire. The boy moved with him, the outer world going dim as huge pictures bloomed inside his head. He moved back and forth as he condensed these pictures into a fine point of feeling, sweet as the highest, purest song.”
Camenker’s report said the material include subjects such as “Ideas for erotic sex,” “Explicit sexuality information,” “Homosexual and transgender sex information,” “Graphic homosexual short stories” and “BDSM – bondage and sexual sadomasochism.”
One accessed article was called “Orgasms for All.” A lesson instructs, “So lock the door, grab a hand mirror, and let’s inspect your ittiest bits.”
An interactive page instructs: “Arrange the steps required to apply a condom by clicking and dragging each condom in its right position.”
A graphic says: “you could … suck, kiss, touch, bite, fondle, nibble, squeeze, and lick someone’s … kiss for a long time, using lots of tongue … have sex in front of mirrors … get into role play (for instance, tie someone up) … look at sexy pictures and videos … talk dirty … strip down … shower together.”
Yet another instruction talks about exhibitionism: “We’re talking all types. Flashing, sex in a public place, sex in a private place with open drapes, wearing a skirt but no underwear. (Um, meaning her. Generally.) ‘The thrill of being viewed has a lot to do with getting attention,’ says Queen. ‘For women, it’s a sort of centering experience that makes them realize they have attractiveness and erotic energy, even if they don’t look like Lindsey Lohan.”
‘Committed to the best education’
The company to which Cherry Creek links is EBSCO Information Services, which, the father told WND, admitted having a wide range of such material online.
At that time, the company declined to respond to WND’s request for comment.
But district spokesperson Tustin Amole confirmed to WND that the school provides links through a password-protected portal that goes to EBSCO for its sex-ed materials.
Amole told WND the district instructs students not to follow inappropriate links once there, because it would be “a violation of the Network Resource Acceptable User Waiver.”
Asked whether objectionable material is available to students, Amole referred to a district statement: “The following is our statement regarding the information posted on the Mass Resistance website, which has been identified as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“The Cherry Creek School District is committed to providing the best possible educational opportunities to all students using the best resources available. No sexually explicit or inappropriate content exists on any Cherry Creek School District website. Our filters block all attempts to access such content by students and staff while using the district network. For students to have access to the district’s network and resources, parents must read and agree to our Internet and Network Resource Acceptable User Waiver.”
Amole explained the “network resources used by the Cherry Creek School District are used by tens of thousands of public school districts and public libraries around the country.”
“We will continue to review all of the resources and materials provided to students and will take the appropriate action regarding materials not suitable for use.”
And Amole said, “I would add that of the more than 54,000 students in the Cherry Creek School district we have received this complaint from the parents of just one student.”
Camenker, whose organization for years has reported on such activities by school districts, including when Massachusetts districts held “sex fairs” under the guise of sex education, said his research of the issue is ongoing.
The parents told WND that all parents should know that if a child is left unattended on the Internet, there are dangers from unlimited “Google” use.
However, they expected that such material would not be available through a school portal.
School officials told WND essentially that once students move through the portal to the EBSCO material, they are outside the purview of the district.
The parents told WND they showed some of the materials to the local district attorney, who said it would be illegal to print them and hand them out to children, but because they reside on the Web, the law allows it.
The parents talked to EBSCO and were told that the company provides a site for various resources to be published, and by contract they are not allowed to limit access.
See what American education has become, in “Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians Are Using Government Schools to Destroy America’s Children.”
NCOSE explained EBSCO offers “fast access to curriculum-appropriate content,” but in fact, in its Explora, Science Reference Center, Literary Reference Center and other options, provides “easy access to hardcore pornography sites and extremely graphic sexual content.”
“EBSCO is at the center of a sexual exploitation scandal,” explained Hawkins.
“This K-12 online library resource provider markets itself as providing reliable educational resources. EBSCO’s family owned brand leads school administrators, teachers, and librarians alike to trust the material it provides, yet EBSCO’s resources are awash in links to hardcore pornographic sites, and other extremely graphic sexual content.
“These explicit search results are not educational tools that help students learn about their bodies. Innocent searches lead to sites that normalize sexual violence, such as a link to a story depicting the rape of a woman using the barrel of a gun, as well as sites that normalize risky sexual behaviors such as public, anal, and group sex. These toxic sexual messages are being provided to young students under the guise of an authoritative academic resource.”
NCOSE continued, “Similar online library resource providers such as ProQuest and Cengage Learning are also conduits of pornographic and sexually explicit material to school children. We call on them to take immediate and swift action to stop the dissemination of this kind of content.”
Here’s a video about the NCOSE’s “Dirty Dozen.”