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Houston Landing. Katy ISD board debates policy on informing parents of their student’s gender identity
Harvard Political Review. The Houston ISD Takeover: Unpacking the Normalization of Infringements on Student Rights
Houston Chronicle - "Educational policies center on youth and disproportionately affect us, yet don't prioritize the impact on us" - Iris Cheng, SEAT organizer.
Houston Chronicle. Student activist gives voice to giving youths a voice in schools Iris' advocacy began during the start of her junior year, when book bans in the state gained national attention. In a state that she believes has spent the past couple of years eating away at students' rights in the name of their so-called "best interests," where, she thought, can students gain a foothold in the system? She then discovered a passion when she stumbled upon the student-trustee model.
Project Censored. Texas Book Ban Bills Set a Dangerous Precedent
Project Censored. Texas Book Ban Bills Set a Dangerous Precedent. By Cameron Samuels | SEAT Organizer. Many of our state legislators have left no mercy for LGBTQ+ Texans. Censorious legislation like House Bill 900 and Senate Bill 13 attempt to relate queer identity with sexual obscenity. The bills target educators’ expertise and diminish students’ right to read in a vitriolic attack on queer identity, and more broadly, the agency young people wield in our own education.
Houston Chronicle. As a Katy student, I fought book bans. We're losing. (Opinion).
Houston Chronicle. As a Katy student, I fought book bans. We're losing. (Opinion). By Cameron Samuels | SEAT Organizer. In 2021, amid submitting college applications and navigating the joys of senior year, I confronted Katy ISD's ban on LGBTQ+ internet resources and distributed hundreds of banned books to high school students. Now the conservatives who spoke against me at board meetings are elected to the school board and pushing the very bigotry we dismantled.
Houston Chronicle. Trendsetter Grand Marshal Cameron Samuels in the parade during the Pride Parade downtown on Saturday, June 24, 2023 in Houston. Karen Warren/Staff photographer
Mother Jones. Legislatures Introduced 550 Anti-Trans Bills So Far This Year
Mother Jones. Legislatures Introduced 550 Anti-Trans Bills So Far This Year “Following a year of unprecedented book bans and classroom gag orders, this state legislation is not surprising,” said LGBTQ+ youth activist Cameron Samuels. Now a freshman at Brandeis University, they led a successful effort, along with the ACLU, to reverse book bans and internet censorship at their high school in Katy, Texas. LGBTQ+ students’ need for these resources could rise as advocacy groups track an increase in hostile educational environments.
Project Censored. Radio Show: Censorship and Book Banning in Texas
Project Censored. Cameron Samuels, Hayden Cohen, and Angel Huang are recent high-school graduates in Texas, now attending universities, who lobby against efforts by state and local authorities to ban books or impose restrictions on publishers and school librarians. They spoke with Mickey on May 22 from the state capitol building in Austin.
Truthout. The Fight Against Book Bans is Mobilizing a New Generation of Student Activists
"We don’t really have any of these books that are being banned or challenged,” Daniels says. “We are being taken out of the picture and we haven’t even been put in it yet.” Samuels and their fellow activists packed school board meetings (Samuels never testified alone again), lobbied for the right to read at the Texas legislature as part of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, and distributed hundreds of copies of banned books to students in the school district. The lessons that Samuels and their fellow student activists learned — namely that it takes an organized community of people to take effective action — are being applied throughout the state.
Shift Press. We must defend intellectual freedom in Texas. By Da'Taeveyon Daniels, SEAT organizer. As a student advocate on the front lines in Texas, I am appalled by the introduction of HB 900, a dangerous bill that threatens our fundamental right to intellectual freedom. HB 900 seeks to ban books and materials in public school libraries that are deemed "inappropriate" by the subjective standards of a small group of individuals. It empowers those who seek to erase history, silence marginalized voices, and impose their own ideologies on our educational institutions.
Open Letter: Protesting the anti-diversity assault bills. By SEAT, NAACP Texas, LULAC, Black Brown Dialogues on Policy, et al.
Houston Chronicle. Mass shootings taking a toll on children's mental health: 'Our kids should not have to live like this'
Houston Chronicle. Hayden Cohen, a 19-year-old community college student and Houston ISD graduate, said there is a frustrating disconnect between Texas legislators and people across the state facing the real impacts of gun violence. "It feels like almost every weekend we hear news about some new shooting, and then during the week, you get news of committees turning down gun reform bills and hearings going awry," Cohen said. At graduation last spring, Cohen sat next to an empty chair for a classmate at Energy Institute High School who died in a shooting in April 2022.
The Dallas Morning News. Will Texas adopt 'Don't Say Gay' laws as strict as Florida's rules?
The Dallas Morning News. Advocates worry such bills could hurt children whose families may not be accepting of their sexuality or gender identity and even encourage bullying. “This bill is one that will remove student voices and prevent students from having safe spaces in their community,” Cameron Samuels, who graduated from the Houston-area Katy school district last year, said during a recent hearing. The legislation is part of sweeping efforts this session that LGBTQ advocates say targets their community and attempts to erase such identities from the classroom.
OutSmart, Houston's LGBTQ Magazine. A Pro-LGBTQ Bill Advances in Austin. HB 1945 would grant students access to essential online LGBTQ resources.
OutSmart, Houston's LGBTQ Magazine. On March 8, HB 1945 was referred to the House Youth, Health and Safety Select Committee. No date was set for a hearing. Rep. Jon Rosenthal (D-Houston) sponsored the bill, which relates to students’ access to certain internet websites in public schools. “I hope that conservatives and progressives alike all agree on the importance of mental-health services and making sure that young people in schools have access to these life-saving resources, no matter what they may go through,” Rep. Rosenthal says.
Jewish Herald-Voice, JHV. Texas bipartisan bills would strengthen my Judaism and value my education.
Teen Vogue. Book Sanctuary Cities Like Chicago Are a Response to Book Bans, Censorship