Every year I teach my high school students the definition of “euphemism”: the substitution of a word with potentially inflammatory or inappropriate connotations with something more acceptable.  

Perhaps I should show them last week’s the Southern Ulster Times in which the Marlboro school board, attempting to justify banning the books “Dear Martin” and “Poet X,” couched its defense in euphemisms like, “I just didn’t like the book,” and “I don’t see where this advances our district or our children.”     

Stating “to call this a ban is irresponsible” does not change the fact that when something is removed from access for ideological reasons, it is, functionally, banned. 

I find it insulting the board goes on to gas-light constituents by attempting to educate them about an agenda as something “that speaks to us about what separates us,” then pushes an agenda that does just that.  

All the more inappropriate is when further into the article we are told, “It’s not that I want to ban anything” before being subjected to teachers’ and librarians’ professional integrity called into question.

It seems the wealthy ideological dark money front groups responsible for the national CRT/book ban hysteria have infiltrated the Marlboro school district.

We should not be banning books in 21st-century America nor should we be insulting parents,educators, and taxpayers by being intellectually dishonest.  

This is New York, not Tennessee or Florida.