Critics of recent laws allowing school books and other classroom materials to be challenged and removed have categorized the effort as book banning. And many school districts have taken steps—some drastic—to keep themselves from running afoul of these new state laws. Gov. Ron DeSantis himself has spearheaded the efforts to keep inappropriate books away from kids, but now he’s endorsing a plan to curb what some see as excessive challenges while also saying widespread book banning is a hoax.
Gov. DeSantis in a March 2023 press event highlighted examples of books he says state changes have helped block from classroom shelves. The event highlighted sexually graphic passages from books like Gender Queer, Flamer, and Lets Talk about it--which were taken out of some school districts. During that event, DeSantis also declared widespread book banning to be a hoax.
“A lot of what’s going on is creating a political narrative. That’s a false narrative in service of using our schools for indoctrination, rather than education," he said.
Other removals and challenges have been more controversial, such as the rejection of works like I am Billie Jean King, the Kite Runner, and Toni Morrison’s Beloved. DeSantis still maintains book banning is a hoax, but he recently Endorsed a House proposal to curb schoolbook removals and challenges.
"We like people wanting to be involved in what’s going on [but] to just show up and object to every single book under the sun, that is not an appropriate situation here. And we’ve seen that occasionally," he said recently.
According to the group PEN America, Florida has surpassed Texas in the number of books removed from schools, and 40% of books tossed out of schools nationwide happened in this state. The Florida Department of Education also keeps a list of book challenges and removals, and the schools with the highest figures are Clay County, Escambia and Martin County. Many of those challenges were done by only a handful of people with no ties to those districts.
“I find the governor’s statements to be highly problematic and gas lighting and passing the buck," said PEN America Florida Director Katie Blankenship. "But the governor is, in his way, acknowledging that there’s been harm done and something needs to change. We agree with that. We’ve been saying that. We’ve been saying that from the rooftops."
PEN America is a first amendment watchdog group that promotes reading and literacy. The organization is also suing Escambia over book removals which were done by the district itself.
As part of a broader bill that would rollback regulations on public schools the Florida House has pitched an idea to charge a $100 fee to people without kids in a school who challenge books if they’ve unsuccessfully challenged five or more books within a calendar year. The idea is to stop the excessive challenges.
"If you look at the history of the objections that originated from non-government actors…it’s a handful of people…that are responsible for hundreds and hundreds of these book bans," said Blankenship.
She notes the House plan wouldn’t stop any removals by school districts themselves, but is the start of an admission that maybe, some of the so-called “anti-woke” proposals pushed within the past few years, went too far.
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