School board meeting cut short as protests over LGBTQ books grow unruly

It was the most recent clash in Dearborn between parents who say their children are being exposed to sexually explicit books in school and educators who say they’ve updated a system to assess materials to make sure they’re appropriate for students. The tension mirrors the growing antagonism between schools and parents that has flared up around the country in recent years, fueled by pandemic-related school closures and debates over teachings on race and gender.

“In 2020, it was the global pandemic. In 2021, it was masks. Today’s debate is books. This is a national debate, my friends,” board member Hussein Berry said at Monday’s meeting in Dearborn.

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Like other parts of the country, conservative Christians were the first to raise fears about books with LGBTQ content in the Michigan school district, which serves the city of Dearborn and part of Dearborn Heights in the Detroit metro area, the Detroit Free Press reported. They then rallied the significant Muslim population in both cities to join them.

Weeks ahead of Monday’s meeting, local Muslim leaders pushed people to attend to tell the school board they oppose LGBTQ books being in public schools. One of the most prominent Muslim leaders in the state, Imam Sayed Hassan Al-Qazwini of the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights, used his sermon on Friday to urge his followers to go to the meeting to protest.

“Some of those books are completely inappropriate for our children to read,” Al-Qazwini said, according to the Free Press. “Some of those books promote pornography. Some of them promote homosexuality. We don’t need this.”