Steenman doesn't like a lot of the curriculum at Williamson County Schools. But four books in the second-grade lessons plans are the target of her campaign.
Three of the books, about the civil rights movement, are problematic for the way they're taught, she says. One is a
children's book about the March on Washington written for young readers.
Two tell the story of Ruby Bridges, a 6-year-old who integrated an elementary school in New Orleans in 1960. "Ruby Bridges Goes To School," written for elementary school students by Bridges herself, is fine for kids to read, Steenman says. But she says teachers should not be allowed to lead discussions of the pictures in the book -- one of which is the famous
Norman Rockwell painting of Ruby, the US Marshals who had to protect her from an angry segregationist White crowd, and the ugly slur hurled at her by adults.
"There's no need to emphasize it," she says of the slur. "Just, you know, if they want to read 'this book has a famous painting,' fine. And then just move on."
There's no safe way to teach "Separate Is Never Equal," a 2014 picture book about a landmark legal case that integrated the southern California schools in the 1940s, Steenman says. The book should be banned, because it features contemporaneous quotes uttered by White segregationists in court.
"They [students] are sitting there listening to this, and all they're hearing is 'Mexicans are dirty, inferior in scholastic ability. They have skin problems and lice' and it just goes on and on and on about it," Steenman said as she flipped through the pages. "And I submit that's what they're going to take from that book, because they're just not ready."
This idea that second-graders can't handle history -- that hearing about it could, in fact, make them racist or hate their own race -- is central to the Moms For Liberty complaint against the Williamson County public schools.
The debate over "Separate Is Never Equal," is a surprise to Duncan Tonatiuh, the award-winning author of the book.
"The villain here is racism and segregation," Tonatiuh told CNN while flipping through the pages. "At the end of the book, what I wanted to show is the Mexican American children and the White children being in school together and playing together and interacting with each other."
Duncan Tonatiuh
Tonatiuh has won a number of awards for writing engaging stories for a young audience. He said he's read the book to many elementary school students and the response has been nothing like what Steenman fears.
"When I shared the story with kids, I don't see kids saying, 'oh, this makes me feel shame,'" he said. "They say, 'that's not right. That's not fair. That's not how people should treat people.' That's the reaction that I get."