Senator Reads a Graphic Sexual Assault Scene, Inserts His Colleagues' Names

The public reading was supposed to make a point about harmful content in public schools.

Content warning: this piece includes excerpts from Nebraska Senator Steve Halloran’s graphic description of sexual assault, as well as other references to rape.

A Nebraska state senator came under fire this week when he inserted the name of follow legislators into a rape scene he was reading as part of an argument in favor of school censorship¹.

Senator Steve Halloran was reading a passage from Alice Sebold’s memoir Lucky, which he later said, without apparent evidence, was “in some schools, required reading,” as part of an argument in favor of a bill that would make it easier to prosecute librarians and K-12 school teachers for providing “obscene materials” to children. (Opponents pointed out that the bill did not actually define “obscene material” and one, Senator John Cavanaugh, argued that proponents were merely addressing “language they find dis-favorable” during the debate, “which is Constitutionally protected.”)

Halloran began his remarks, “Be prepared to be embarrassed. And any …