A 15-year-old student announces her departure from a North Carolina high school, citing the requirement to read “graphic, incestual sexual content” in her Honors English class as the reason for her decision.
Lorena Benson, a sophomore at Athens Drive High School in Raleigh, criticized the Wake County school board in a viral video for permitting students to read a story that reportedly describes a sexual encounter between cousins as “putting a banana in a tomato,” according to the News & Observer.
Benson expressed significant concern and disappointment to the school board last week. She said “I am deeply bothered and deeply disappointed. I have decided to leave Athens Drive High School because I should not have to deal with pornographic, incestual sexual content taught to me in my classes.”
Benson, who relocated to North Carolina with her family from the Dominican Republic three months ago, expressed that the experience made her and her classmates feel “very uncomfortable.”
“Even after reading it again, it makes me feel very uncomfortable,” Benson said. “This graphic, incestual sexual language should not be taught in any class, much less an Honors English class.”
The district announced it is looking into Benson’s claims and stated that it cannot comment on ongoing internal investigations.
Benson did not specify the book her class was reading, but the Observer indicated it matched the description of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel “Tomorrow Is Too Far.”
The narrative centers on a sister who unintentionally leads to her brother’s demise and the consequences that follow, yet one of the initial paragraphs features a line about the narrator engaging in a sexual encounter with a cousin.
Benson’s address to the school board sparked significant backlash on social media, drawing attention from Michele Morrow, the Republican candidate for state superintendent of public instruction.
“This must stop. We must protect our children!,” Morrow wrote on X, attacking her Democratic opponent, Mo Green.
“[He] thinks this is ok and wants to keep these sexually explicit materials available to our children,” Morrow added.
“School safety absolutely includes protecting young, developing minds from being attacked with sexually explicit material.”