School Czar’s Permanent Record

While CBSNews.com has 108 stories on the White House-gate-crashing Salahis, the site only features one story on the “Safe Schools Czar” of the Obama administration, Kevin Jennings.  The article on Jennings, entitled “Kevin Jennings Gets Boost from White House,” was written on October 1, 2009.  The article defends Jennings, who was selected for the position largely because of his work founding and directing the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a radical gay promotion group.

However, since October 2009, videos have surfaced of Jennings’ GLSEN teaching 14-year-old boys the dangerous sexual practice of “fisting,” and discussing with them the particulars of oral sex.

Most recently, a team of “independent researchers” came forth with a report on a reading list for schoolchildren that Jennings was involved in creating, as the founder and executive director of GLSEN. “Although GLSEN does not address how books get added to its list, it’s hard to imagine that they are chosen by low-level staffers or volunteers, with no oversight,” the researchers note, especially “since the list of recommended books is one of the organization’s primary tools… every single book mentioned in this report was added to the list while Jennings was in charge (dates are given for each title’s addition to the list). Therefore, it’s reasonable to believe he was aware of the addition of these works – especially since most were added when GLSEN was still quite small and the Executive Director had a hands-on role in daily operations.”

These researchers randomly selected 11 books off Jennings’ GLSEN reading list, and what they found left them “speechless.”  From their report:

We were unprepared for what we encountered. Book after book after book contained stories and anecdotes that weren’t merely X-rated and pornographic, but which featured explicit descriptions of sex acts between pre-schoolers; stories that seemed to promote and recommend child-adult sexual relationships…affairs between students and teachers, five-year-olds playing sex games…One memoir even praised becoming a prostitute as a way to increase one’s self-esteem. Above all, the books seemed to have less to do with promoting tolerance than with an unabashed attempt to indoctrinate students into a hyper-sexualized worldview.

Their report and excerpts of the books they reviewed can be found here.  It should frighten parents in this country to have the man behind this reading list functioning as the nation’s “Safe Schools Czar.”

But, parents would never even be aware of this aspect of Kevin Jennings’ vitae, without reporting from such people as Glenn Beck, Scott Baker of Breitbart.com, and Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit.

As mentioned above, CBSNews.com has only one article devoted to Jennings, and it does not mention Jennings’ radical gay agenda as exemplified through Jennings’ work at GLSEN.  What the article does do is defend Jennings; in early October, Jennings came under fire for advice he had given to a high school student when Jennings was a teacher twenty years ago.  The student—pseudonymously known as “Brewster”—had come to Jennings to confess that he had been involved in a sexual relationship with an older man.  Jennings responded that he hoped Brewster had used a condom.  Jennings did not report the incident to either Brewster’s parents or the authorities.

CBS seems not to find this disturbing, adding at the end of the article that “Jennings has won honors from groups including the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the National Association of Independent Schools, the National Education Association and the Massachusetts Counselors Association.”  In other words, “right-wing groups” might have targeted Jennings, but school counselors still like him!

Similarly, CNN.com largely ignores Jennings as well, with only one article from 2009 even mentioning him.  The article, “Ex-pupil defends Obama aide over controversial advice in 1988,” is also defensive of Jennings, arguing that since Brewster was 16 at the time, Jennings’ reaction to the inappropriate relationship doesn’t matter.  The article maintains that a CNN reporter personally went to see “Brewster” and examine his driver’s license, which is how they know he was not merely fifteen.  Of course, since Brewster is essentially anonymous, this information cannot be validated.

ABCNews.com has four full articles mentioning Jennings from 2009, but the articles do not include as much reporting as one might hope.   One of these articles only mentions Jennings in a list of czars; another quotes him as an authority in support of the open expression of gay sexuality; and the last two follow the tradition set by CNN.com and CBSNews.com, in that they discuss the Brewster incident while subtly defending Jennings.

MSNBC.com links to Jennings’ website, but apparently does not have anything else about Jennings on its website.

In the midst of so much willful ignorance on the part of the media, the Washington Times merits recognition: they recently published an op-ed discussing Jennings and his exploits in sex “education.”

Kevin Jennings is a man the media should be investigating; his influence doubtlessly will reach students across America.  And as Gerald Tirozzi of the National Association of Secondary School Principles, who recommended Jennings for the job, said, Jennings’ “agenda is not only about gay kids.  It’s been all kids.”

Allie Winegar Duzett is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.