The US state of Virginia’s seal has been pulled from Texas faculty platforms, in response to Axios
A US faculty district has eliminated a web-based civics lesson about Virginia and its state flag on account of guidelines in opposition to frontal nudity, Axios has reported.
The Virginia official flag options the state seal, which depicts the Roman goddess Virtus standing over a defeated tyrant. In keeping with classical imagery, Virtus is partially draped, with one breast uncovered.
In line with Axios report on Friday, the Lamar Consolidated Unbiased Faculty District (CISD), situated exterior Houston, Texas, has eliminated the Virginia lesson from a web-based platform utilized by elementary college students in grades three to 5. The district confirmed the transfer in response to a Freedom of Data Act request filed by the Texas Freedom to Learn Undertaking.
The group’s co-director, Anne Russey, mentioned the district cited its newly adopted coverage banning “visible depictions or illustrations of frontal nudity” in elementary faculty library supplies.
The eliminated content material was a part of PebbleGo Subsequent, an academic web site utilized by faculties throughout the US, together with some in Virginia.
Virginia’s authentic 1776 state seal portrayed the Roman goddess Virtus clad in toga and a full breastplate. The imagery was adopted for the state flag in 1861, when the legislature positioned the seal on a blue subject to formalize it as Virginia’s official emblem. In 1901, nevertheless, a redesign launched the bare-breasted determine after the secretary of the commonwealth criticized the sooner model for missing “inventive grace and wonder” and showing too masculine.
The present design, finalized in 1931, reveals Virtus in a helmet, holding a spear and sword above a fallen tyrant, with the state’s Latin motto that reads Sic Semper Tyrannis – “Thus At all times to Tyrants.”
The Texas Freedom to Learn Undertaking, which advocates in opposition to guide bans and censorship, criticized the flag’s removing and the legislation behind it. On its web site, the group described state insurance policies as “obscure and complicated.”
“As we speak, it’s the Virginia state flag. Tomorrow will or not it’s books that comprise historic pictures…” the group mentioned.
Texas handed Home Invoice 900 in 2023, aimed toward holding sexually express content material off of college bookshelves. State Senator Angela Paxton mentioned final month that kids shouldn’t be uncovered to “inappropriate, dangerous materials,” including that “younger brains can not unsee what they see.”
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