Oklahoma's culture inspector has appointed professional harasser Chaya Raichik — of the Libs of TikTok account — to the state Department of Education's Library Media Advisory Committee.
In a statement released Tuesday, Superintendent Ryan Walters wrote that Raiczyk is “on the front lines of showing the world exactly what the radical left is about lowering standards, porn in schools and pushing our kids to wake up.” .
Raichik has no background in education and worked as a real estate agent before her rise to the internet. Libs of TikTok — which has 2.5 million followers on X alone — serves to directly harass teachers, doctors, hospitals and others who support the rights of the LGBTQ+ community and the need for comprehensive education on issues of race, gender and sexuality. TikTok libs is prohibited from TikTok itself and in the past temporarily suspended by Instagram and Facebook.
TikTok's Libs primarily work by singling out accounts or institutions seen as supporters of “woke” or inclusive ideology, often reposting videos that have been edited or stripped of content. Despite Raichik's claims that simply republish content that is already available online to “expose” the “lunatics”, threats, hate mail and intense vitriol against those featured on the account tend to follow shortly afterwards. Raichik's activity has been linked to bomb threats against schools and hospitals, and intimidation campaigns against those who appear in her content. Raichik sees this as a point of pride. After USA Today published an article in a report documenting the Libs of TikTok's impact, Raichik was delighted to have made the front page of the newspaper. Raichik currently uses a photo of herself holding up the paper as the profile picture on her personal X (formerly Twitter) account.
Walters is working overtime to introduce the influence of far-right ideologues into Oklahoma's education system. In September, the superintendent announced that the state had agreed to form a “partnership” with the right-wing media organization PragerU — without submitting the materials to a state curriculum review. Walters also supervises removal attempts what he calls “woke” ideology from the state's school libraries and has accused the American Library Association of advocating exposing young children to pornography. Walter's Crusade often confused “pornography” with literature referring to LGBTQ+ people.
TikTok's Libs have in the past approved the removal of books with LGBTQ content from school and public libraries, and her online activity singled out specific librarians and educators has led to the removal of several titles from the shelves in various school districts across the country.
In August, several Oklahoma schools were the target of repeated bomb threats after Superintendent Walters shared a post from the Libs of TikTok targeting a librarian in the Union Public Schools district. Now, Walters will allow Raichik, who has potentially endangered Oklahoma students through her content, to influence school policies.
from our partners at https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/chaya-raichik-libs-tiktok-oklahoma-schools-committee-1234952518/
