In the age of #MeToo and Harvey Weinstein, it is hard to conceive why any school district would think requiring teenage girls to meditate on a song normalizing sexting would be acceptable. Yet, that’s precisely what led to the abuse of Skylar Cason’s religious conscience at Steamboat Springs High School in Colorado.
The class is “Music Literature.” Ostensibly to test the boundaries of appropriateness, Skylar’s teacher passed out an infamous poem from the 1950s, “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg. The poem’s history is plagued with criticism and accusations of indecency and obscenity. Once the subject of an obscenity trial, a court at length determined that the book-length poem failed to meet the legal definition of obscenity. Many today still debate its place as one of the 20th century’s great works of literature.
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