One Iowa lawmaker recently made headlines after calling out school officials at a school board meeting about obscene materials.

Iowa Senate President Jake Chapman of Adel attended a Johnston School Board meeting in November after it was brought to his attention that there are what he claims to be obscene materials in books in school libraries. He claimed at the meeting that he wants to propose legislation making it a felony for school officials to allow these materials to be checked out by students.

District 24 Senator Jesse Green agrees with Chapman’s assessment of inappropriate books in schools.

“The reason you don’t see in the news from the details on this is because the obscene material that is being talked about is too graphic to show on the news, what exactly it is. It is absolutely disgusting some of this material that is out in the schools. It is pornographic. There’s no other way to define it.”

Green says up to ten-percent of students that graduate high school would have received inappropriate materials at school or have been sexually abused verbally or abused in some way. He expects this topic to be discussed and there to be an outcome, in which he explains some possible solutions.

“Does the (Iowa) Code just need to be clarified on what obscene material is because it is already against the law to have materials like this there, it’s just that it’s vague, the language. Most authorities just cannot prosecute something like this because the language is vague. It might be something like that or just requiring that parents be notified when these books are checked out by their children. So something is going to happen in this topic, I’m not sure what, but it’s something that needs to be changed.”      

Green notes that there have been complaints ranging from furious parents to attacking teachers. He adds, this same topic has been brought up in other states in the country. Click the link below for Iowa Code 728 that deals with obscene materials.