Florida Book Censorship

New thread (Jul 22, 10:54pm). This opening post is a placeholder for a topic index, in development.

>2 aspirit:: "Florida's Book Bans and Challenges" List on LibraryThing

>18 aspirit: onward: Legal challenges at the state level

There's a new LibraryThing list focusing on what's being targeted in the state of Florida:

https://www.librarything.com/list/43692/all/Floridas-Book-Bans-and-Challenges

50+ challenged books were identified by The Ledger. Almost 140 more books were added from a list (pdf) for Indian Rivers County Schools.

A little of everything (classics, new books, novels, nonfiction, poetry,...) and lots of LGBTQ+ and BIPOC works are included. The intended age ranges of the books range from babies to adults, though most (so far with the list) were shelved only in high schools.

I'll look through our Headlines thread for books not yet added.

The proposed math books rejected by the Florida's Department of Education due to book-banning legislation contained content critical of racism or other "objectionable" content such as instruction aligned with Common Core (standardization). These books don't appear to be in LibraryThing. Here's a list (an external link) to the 54 rejected.

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/see-the-54-math-textbooks-rejected-by-florid...

Reference Notes

• "Unmasking Moms of Liberty" (Nov 11, 2021 | Media Matters)
https://www.mediamatters.org/critical-race-theory/unmasking-moms-liberty

• "A local right-wing group {Alliance Defending Freedom} connected to national extremists is working to get LGBTQ books off school shelves in Florida" (Mar 29, 2022 | Media Matters)
https://www.mediamatters.org/alliance-defending-freedom/local-right-wing-group-c...

• How many students are represented by a school district?
Examples (a snapshot of one year): Broward: over 260,000; Polk: ~100,500; Brevard: ~71,000
Source: https://www.niche.com/k12/search/largest-school-districts/s/florida/

• The largest high schools in the state each represents over four thousand teenage students each year, including some in college-prep courses.
https://www.niche.com/k12/search/largest-public-high-schools/s/florida/

• Books from a school are read by students, teachers, and school administrators as well as family members of the students. When books are removed from school classrooms and libraries, the ban can be for weeks or it can be permanent, with the books never returning to shelves. For non-temporary removals, the method (as in donated, recycled/trashed, or burned) is typically not provided to the public.

"Broward school district donated LGBTQ books ahead of new Florida law' | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/education/fl-ne-broward-schools-lgbtq-books-20...

Boxes full of LGBTQ-oriented children’s books were donated from Broward County schools to the county-funded Stonewall National Museum and Archives in Fort Lauderdale weeks before July 1, when Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law took effect.

It's unclear what other school districts are doing with the same or similar works.

ETA: The book titles were not provided in the article or on the LGBTQ library's website.

This list becomes more depressing every time I work on. School districts have been removing hundreds of books from circulation this year. Some of the removals have been quiet, barely coming up in news, and not involved in a part of the review processes the ALA suggests for all book challenges.

From what I'm reading in the scattered news across the state, politician-funded pro-censorship groups such as Moms for Liberty have been very busy this summer and are preparing for more book challenges in the upcoming school year.

There's almost no chance I will come anywhere close to keeping up when homeschooling starts for me again. Not unless there's help.

I don't know if any else is reading posts in this group these days, but maybe... someone can take a region of the state to watch?

Random Note:

I really wish the people making lists for Moms for Liberty and similar groups were better spellers/typists—at least, better at copying and pasting. That would make identifying the books they want gone so much easier.

Some of the titles or author's name look more as if they had come from word of mouth rather than a book's cover or a library listing. That's how difficult the longer challenge lists can be.

Additionally, journalists as a whole have an annoying tendency to provide only a book title, not the author byline or publication date, as if multiple works with similar content and titles don't exist.

I'm taking a break.

Walton County (NW Fla)
List: https://twitter.com/DWUhlfelderLaw/status/1516899552426700804/photo/1 (58 titles)
News coverage: https://pen.org/book-banning-in-walton-county-based-on-misleading-porn-in-school...

Throughout the state, classroom libraries in elementary schools might not be allowed at the start of this upcoming school year...?

"Despite 'taking a pause' on class libraries, BPS assures some books will be available" (assuming Brevard County's teachers and administrators can figure out how to follow the new law while keeping books in the classrooms)
https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/education/2022/07/14/brevard-public-scho...

"A Classroom Without Books: Florida Teachers Told To Remove Classroom Libraries for Review"
https://bookriot.com/florida-teachers-remove-classroom-libraries/ (Jul 25)

... Hm.

I'm noticing again and again signs that journalists covering book challenges and censorship might not understand how municipal governments work. This is making me doubt how much I know despite having worked in multiple levels of government, including a state DOE. Maybe readers are supposed to know what the journalists are (vaguely and at what at times seems to be inaccurately) talking about? So I'm putting together what I know and what I can quickly find as it pertains to Florida.

Note that there can be significant differences between states if not counties and cities in the USA, and all of these together might not translate to how other countries run.

My understanding of any of the following might also be outdated, as terminology and political expectations change quickly. I'll post drafts and make corrections as needed.

To start with... Q&A!

Q: What does a school board represent?
A: Most of the school boards in the news are for grade schools, which are collectively for kindergarten in elementary school through twelfth grade in high school. (Possibly also preschools?) Note that in Florida these are elected officials with a strange relationship to the state governor's office.

Q: Who may access materials in a K–12 school library?
A: Usually, only the students, teachers, and administrators of the school. The annual numbers range from dozens to several thousands of people, depending on the size of the school.

Q: Who may access materials in a classroom library?
A: Usually, only that teacher's students. That's anything from a handful to hundreds of students, depending on class size and course load at the time.

Q: Who may access materials in a college or university library?
A: The answer varies. Some higher education library are restrictive, granting permission to only some teachers and some students. Other schools allow all teachers, almost all students, plus some members of the general public on request.

Q: Who may access materials in the public (community) library?
A: Most of the time, anyone who can physically enter the building. Many physical library books can be read within the library during open hours without checkout. Those materials usually don't require a library card to access. However, some materials might be locked in cases, special rooms, or shelved behind a librarian's desk, requiring permission to read. Library computers and digital books (ebooks and audiobooks) also typically require a library card to access. Library cards are issued to residents of the library's county who can show proof of residency and do not have restrictions on their accounts; in some cases, cards are also issued to non-residents who apply in person and pay a fee.

Q: Are any bookstores regulated by governments?
A: Yes, but how this can affect books that are sold or distributed is complicated. Official censorship within bookstores is extremely rare. Unfortunately, a government office such as city codes enforcement, a fire department, or another law enforcement agency have been known to intimidate bookstore owners to stop selling "offensive" books. Bookstores may also have restrictions on how and where they may deliver books; for example, Florida prisons have banned tens of thousands of titles, affecting—whether or not they know it—over 100,000 inmates each year (according to the FDOC stats).

Q: Are Little Libraries and similar projects regulated by governments?
A: This is similar to the previous answer, except fewer tax laws can apply, coding ordinances can be even more complicated (with one or more government owning right-of-ways), and the materials are more vulnerable to anonymous vandalism that can be ignored by law enforcement. By the way, Florida's weather is also extremely unkind to paper in these library boxes. Books warp and mold incredibly fast within 100% humidity, and they discolor to the stage of being unreadable from prolonged exposure to intense UV. Remember that what wasn't built on the coast was built on swamp in this state!

minor edits made

Florida Man Sues School Board Over Library Books He Hasn't Read

https://www.mysuncoast.com/2022/07/08/sarasota-county-school-board-sued-over-obs...

Okay, actually, he's maybe read parts of a few of the more than 50 books on a list he found somewhere on the internet. He doesn't remember where, and he's not sure why some of the books are on the list. However, he's accusing the school board of "purchasing and propagating obscene, lewd, and lascivious materials for distribution to children" in its county schools (kindergarten through 12th grade).

The 50+ titles might not all be on the LT list tracking censorship efforts. I'll add missing works and notes when I can. That might be weeks from now, as I've strained my hand badly enough to cause problems up my arm.

>11 aspirit: He's a sovereign citizen--aka 'nutter'. I would normally say he's not going to get very far with his suit, but this *IS* Florida, after all.

>12 MsMixte: I looked up "sovereign citizen" in response to your comment. That's someone who is anti-government and anti-taxes? So that Clark guy is deliberately attacking the county by dragging the schools into the ridiculous court case?

I also looked up the case. It's still open a month later, though Clark has repeatedly misfiled. He's paid over $300 in case fees. I guess he'd couldn't come up with something better to do with his money... or he's expecting funding from the censorship groups he says he doesn't remember getting the book list from....

By the way, another interesting case with the same name for the plaintiff appears to be a divorce that took more than 17 years, if I'm understanding the history correctly. Just to emphasize, that was years. And there's almost $300 in case fees outstanding to the county for the court events.

>13 aspirit: There are quite a few subsets of sovcits, but this is a good capsule review of the ones most often encountered:

https://www.sog.unc.edu/sites/www.sog.unc.edu/files/Sov%20citizens%20quick%20gui...

To be honest, I don't know quite what Clark is attempting to do here. It's not the normal sovcit action, so I will be interested to see what transpires here. I suspect it's going to get dismissed, but...it's Florida.

Yeah, it's Florida. The latest news suggests there are far too many books being removed and avoided based on content to be tracked here. I doubt anyone could track them without the state government compiling all of the lists required to be reviewed for approval by the media specialists, who are now censors by state law.

There seems to be fear of offering books to students as public schools start back up. School officials are confused about what to do with books under the new legislation restricting instruction that involves racial identity, criticism of history, political activism, gender identity, and sexual orientation. (Both Stop the WOKE Act, which Governor DeSantis says confronts "corporate wokeness" and "Critical Race Theory", and Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, a.k.a. the "Don't Say Gay" law, took effect this summer.)

The state's anti-LGBTQ instruction appears to be causing the most confusion. Some districts have reportedly told teachers that students in kindergarten through third grade must not be shown images of pride flags or same-sex couples. Other school districts have been trying to figure out what if any sex education should be allowed in higher grades to avoid having the "parental rights" used against their schools and educators.

According to Florida Today, the Brevard Public Schools superintendent brought up that some his county's schools typically hold book fairs at the start of the school year but chose not to do so this month. The school board for that county "had received an email indicating teachers were being told to remove any books that couldn’t be found in the Follett system as well as any books discussing sexual orientation and gender identity."

A presentation reviewed by the news company instructs Florida teachers to place "under construction" signs in place of classroom libraries and to make the signs "cute" until books are approved by a media specialist.

School media specialists have yet to be trained on how to approve books on the the lists that must be sent to them for each classroom and media center library.

=====

Sources Not Linked Above

https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/education/2022/08/11/brevard-public-scho...
Mirror: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/as-school-begins-confusion-remains-in-bps-over...

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/dont-say-gay-law-brings-worry-confusion-t...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Parental_Rights_in_Education_Act

The media specialists who are supposed to approve the books allowed in school libraries might not be trained until 2023. In the meantime, book acquisitions have been halted in multiple school districts.

Although Scholastic Book Orders are allowed, in some schools the books purchased by students "must be taken home and cannot remain on campus".

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/no-new-books-florida-school-hb-1467-desantis_n_62...

(An example of Scholastic's offerings: LGBTQIA+ books, all fiction, including 10 works tagged for Kindergarten through Grade 3.)

A lawsuit was filed against DeSantis's "Stop WOKE Act" (officially Florida House Bill 7: "Individual Freedom") in April-- before the law restricting what may be said about race, "color", gender/sex, or national origin in schools or in any workplace with more than 15 employees took effect. The plaintiffs (that is this case the side representing teachers, students, and patents) argues that the law violates rights asserted by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

https://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/floridas-anti-crt-stop-woke-act-faces-lawsuit...

State of Florida attorneys tried to get the judge to either reject the lawsuit or dismiss parts that deal with the educational system. A court decision is still pending.

https://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/florida-tries-to-get-ucf-professors-lawsuit-a...

The ACLU of Florida, American Civil Liberties Union, Legal Defense Fund, and a nationwide law firm has filed a suit on behalf of a group of university professors ​arguing that the "Stop WOKE Act" violates the US Constitution's First and Fourteenth Amendments.

https://www.axios.com/2022/08/18/stop-woke-act-florida-aclu

The W.O.K.E. Act is racially motivated censorship that the Florida legislature enacted, in significant part, to stifle widespread demands to discuss, study, and address systemic inequalities, following the nationwide protests that provoked discussions about race and racism in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd.

https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/pernell-v-florida-board-governors-complaint

(George Floyd was a Minnesotan man murdered by a police officer three months, in 2020, after the civilian murder of Ahmaud Arbery in southern Georgia, Florida's neighbor.)

A preliminary injunction filed by multiple companies against the employee training restrictions of HB 7 opens,

In the popular television series Stranger Things, the “upside down” describes a parallel dimension containing a distorted version of our world. See Stranger Things (Netflix 2022). Recently, Florida has seemed like a First Amendment upside down.

Normally, the First Amendment bars the state from burdening speech, while private actors may burden speech freely. But in Florida, the First Amendment apparently bars private actors from burdening speech, while the state may burden speech freely.

A US District judge has ordered the suspension of enforcement of some part of the bill while saying, "If Florida truly believes we live in a post-racial society, then let it make its case. But it cannot win the argument by muzzling its opponents."

State official's statements imply that one of the many intentions for the bill is to ban diversity training, despite what the text of the bill actually says.

It's unclear whether or not the judge's order involves schools or other government-funded employers.

Michael Woods, a special education teacher at a high school in Palm Beach County {home of Trump's Mar-a-Lago!}, Florida, said he used to have a classroom library with shelves of dozens of books that students could take home and read for fun.

The library included the Twilight and Harry Potter series and a book called Meg, which is a thriller about a shark.

But when school started this week, the classroom library was empty. The books now sit in a school closet, in part because of new laws that restrict classroom instruction.

In May, Palm Beach school district officials sent public school teachers a checklist for reviewing all of the books in their classroom libraries.

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/florida-teachers-navigate-first-year-dont-say-ga...

To be allowed where public school students in the county can access a book, it must pass initial review according to the following checklist.

1. If the book explicitly instructs on sexual orientation or gender identity:
● Is the book accessible to students in grades K-3?
● If the book is for students beyond grade 3, is the content age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate? (If unsure about age-appropriate or developmental appropriateness, mark “Unsure” below.)
NOTE: This does not include books that reference non-traditional family structures. However, a book available to students in grades K-3, with a storyline where a character questions their own gender or sexual orientation should be submitted for review (mark “Yes” below).
□ Yes
□ Unsure

2. Does the book promote, compel, or encourage a student to believe one or more of the following:
□ Members of one race, color, national origin, or sex are morally superior to members of another race, color, national origin, or sex.
--□ Yes
--□ Unsure
□ People are racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.
--□ Yes
--□ Unsure
□ A person's moral character or status as either privileged or oppressed is determined by his or her race, color, national origin, or sex.
--□ Yes
--□ Unsure
□ Treat others disrespectfully based on their race, color, national origin, or sex.
--□ Yes
--□ Unsure
□ An individual should be discriminated against because of the historical actions of others of the same race, color, national origin, or sex.
--□ Yes
--□ Unsure
□ A person, based on their race, color, national origin, or sex, should be discriminated against to achieve diversity, equity, or inclusion.
--□ Yes
--□ Unsure
□ A person bears personal responsibility for and must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the person played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin, or sex.
--□ Yes
--□ Unsure
□ Characteristics such as merit, excellence, hard work, fairness, neutrality, objectivity, and racial colorblindness are racist or sexist, or were created by members of a particular race, color, national origin, or sex to oppress members of another race, color, national origin, or sex.
--□ Yes
--□ Unsure

3. Is the book from the 1619 Project and/or does it quote or reference the 1619 Project? See FDOE Board Rule linked HERE for additional information.
□ Yes
□ Unsure

As required by HB 7 and State Board Rule 6A-1.094124, instructional resources must present content in a factual and objective manner and may not suppress or distort historical events including how individual freedoms have been infringed by slavery, racial oppression, racial segregation, and racial discrimination, as well as topics relating to the enactment and enforcement of laws resulting in racial oppression, racial segregation, and racial discrimination and how recognition of these freedoms has overturned these unjust laws.
4. Does the book propose that racism is currently embedded in American society and its legal systems in order to uphold the supremacy of white persons?
□ Yes
□ Unsure

5. Does the book deny or minimize the Holocaust?
□ Yes
□ Unsure

My understanding is that if any teacher in the county marks “Yes” or “Unsure” for a book, all copies of the book in similar libraries in the county must be removed. Books may be available to students anywhere on school grounds only if none of the answers are “Yes” or “Unsure”.

Teachers were expected to go through the reviews of every book in their classroom libraries before school started, which seems to me to imply they were expected to do it without pay. This is likely after they've spent their own money on acquiring the books.

Collier County Public Schools added a parental "advisory notice" to the cover of over 100 books that significantly overlap with a list of over 100 books targeted by Florida Citizens Alliance last December.

The titles include newer works such a Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe, All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi, and the children's picture book Everywhere Babies in addition to literary classics such as Beloved by Toni Morrison and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/florida-school-district-added-parental-...

I'm seeing around the internet that people are only concerned about book censorship when a state or national government bans a specific list of books in all public spaces. One reason seems to be that it's too hard to envision the impact range of less defined decisions on "smaller" areas.

I'm putting the size adjective in quotes because some counties (units within a state) in the USA are the size of countries. Florida is geographically larger than 100+ individual countries. Its largest county by area is Palm Beach at 2,034 square miles (5,268 square km); that's larger than 65 countries on its own. Palm Beach County's estimated population is over over one-and-a-half million people, making it the fourth most populace county in Florida and equivalent in population size (as well as density!) to Trinidad and Tobago.

I suspect that when people see "county schools" they think of a few buildings for a tightnit, homogeneous community with easy access to a public library. Palm Beach County Schools, the tenth largest district in the USA, actually has 180 schools for a total of 167,000 students. They have over 12,700 teachers and almost 23,000 total employees. According to the county's website, students were born in 192 different countries (including the USA) and territories, and they speak a combined 150 languages. Palm Beach County Schools also offers a virtual school and 28 physical sites for adult education (It's unclear how these lesser known programs are affected by school board decisions).

The county is fortunate to have a public library system made up of 18 branches with physical and digital books. It also has a public-private transit system (something of a novelty to Americans outside of metros). Students who are lucky enough to be introduced to public libraries and who can afford to reach them have access to banned books that way... assuming, of course, the public libraries are determined to offer the books they know are being targeted by state-backed political groups who can propose to cut the library system's funding or to close library branches.

My main point is "just one district" can be something much bigger and more complex than what's imagined.

Sources: worldpopulationreview.com, wikipedia.com, palmbeachschools.org, pbclibrary.org, palmbeachtpa.org

edited to correct typos

I think we could possibly wind up seeing EVERY. LAST. BOOK. banned in Florida schools.

>22 MsMixte: Possibly.

Florida-based Moms for Liberty started as an anti-mask group advocating for the removal of safety procedures in schools during this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. They shifted to book censorship when they succeeded. So what's the endgame? Is the real target public (secular) education? Because any books can be used for education.

So far, the only books I've seen supported by the censorship groups and the Florida politicians (mainly DeSantis) who stand with their leaders on stage are versions of The Holy Bible. So I guess that's those are the only books the censors believe everyone should be reading (until the argument falls back to which version is the "real Bible").

The most effective way to stop students from reading could be to close public schools, so education is controlled entirely by private school profiteers such as the DeVos'. And, oh look, there's a movement to do exactly that. (I would add links, but I came here from reading about Pennsylvania's "kids for cash" scheme. I've got to stay away from reporting sites for the rest of the night. JFC, this world.)

>23 aspirit: This instruction:

"If the book is for students beyond grade 3, is the content age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate? (If unsure about age-appropriate or developmental appropriateness, mark “Unsure” below.)"

precludes using the Bible in any classroom.

>24 MsMixte: In any space that must follow that guidelines, yes, I agree. Censors complain about a single line or a background image making the entire book inappropriate for all children (positively represented by that line or image, no less) then turn around and insist a traditionally Adult book with maybe twenty lines suitable in context for children today is somehow appropriate.

The double standard is intense.

State of Florida officials don't see it the same way. I wish I could find the press meetings where their opinions have been made clear. There's just too much news to swim through at the moment.

"In trainings, Florida tells teachers that religion belongs in public life" (WaPo | Jul 2)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/02/desantis-civics-separation-c...

This was for Florida House Bill 807, yet another piece of legislation that doesn't look like a problem until its implementation. The teachers attending the state's trainings complained of the restricted historical perspective and bias in the presentations.

What is the basic position on what the State wants taught?

Central Florida Civics teacher Abe Lopez supports {Governor} DeSantis’s emphasis on civics and the way the governor believes the subject should be taught. DeSantis invited Lopez to speak at his June 30 event announcing improved civics assessment scores among middle-schoolers. Lopez, who was a member of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s staff, said he was surprised during his first year of teaching last year that his seventh graders knew so little about civics.

“I used this opportunity as a blank slate to help my students understand that their rights are intrinsic and do not come from a man, they do not come from a government. Our rights come from a creator,” Lopez said in his speech. “And once you acknowledge that your rights come from a creator, they can’t be taken away by a man or a government.”

Was any talk about the importance of teaching actual civics in earlier grades? That hasn't come up in my searching.

Seventh grade is years late for so many students to be blank slates, especially if that leaves them vulnerable to being told legal rights created and maintained by government don't exist. That's not only my opinion. Contemporary politics was introduced in third grade when I was a child, fifth for my older spouse (whose entire education was in the one state), and the literature instructing elementary school students on civics has grown since then.

I went into Florida's B.E.S.T. Standards for English Language Arts (pdf), which the State is pointing to as evidence it doesn't want specific controversial classics, such as To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, banned from schools. Other than an apparent Christian and anti-feminism lean to the literary examples, I noticed how old the selections are, as if the list of works hasn't changed in 45 years.

In prisons...
https://data.floridatoday.com/banned-books-in-florida-prison/
News: https://www.floridapoliticalreview.com/banned-books-in-florida-prisons/

I wrote up in >10 aspirit: "Bookstores may also have restrictions on how and where they may deliver books; for example, Florida prisons have banned tens of thousands of titles, affecting—whether or not they know it—over 100,000 inmates each year (according to the FDOC stats)."

The connection between bookstores and prisons is often strengthened by prison policies requiring bookstores to deliver books directly. What that means is individuals such as inmates' family members or friends aren't always allowed to mail or bring books to the prisons; instead, they might be required to order through an approved store willing and able to figure out how to get the books through the sometimes convoluted processes.

Regardless of what it takes for the books to be considered, they then must pass through the prison censors. Books that are rejected are destroyed or returned to the send, depending on policy (and how well it's followed).

I've added to Florida's Book Bans and Challenges List on LibraryThing several of the books that have been rejected. These were some that interested me. For example, vegetable gardening is a subject that might incite a riot. I guess... because it reminds people of fresh food they maybe haven't seen in too long?

Using an article from last month, I've updated the Florida's Book Bans and Challenges list.

https://patch.com/florida/sarasota/banned-books-week-what-titles-have-been-remov...

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/28/1131937439/keri-blakinger-florida-prisons-ban-mem...

"A reporter's memoir of her jail time gets banned in Florida prisons" and I've added the book, Corrections in Ink, to the reading/tracking list for Florida.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkgvbv/anti-lgbtq-groups-are-helping-enforce-a-b...

Motherboard reports, "3 of 4 people appointed to train librarians in the state belong to groups that oppose LGBTQ books. None of them have library experience."

Do you hear that sound? It's a voice screaming "This is not okay!" at what's happening in school media centers.

Claire Woodcock wrote,

DeSantis’ administration put out a call for parental nominees for the volunteer positions, and gave them a week to respond. Out of nearly 100 parent applicants, four were chosen—three are either chapter leaders of Moms for Liberty (M4L) or affiliated with Florida Citizens Alliance (FLCA), two groups that have led a recent push to ban books on LGBTQ and racial justice topics.

So their interests are not in providing resources to all students and teachers. LGBTQ and BIPOC historical figures, characters, health issues, and themes are expected to be placed out of students' reach or removed altogether.

Who are these political organizations supporting? See >4 aspirit: for Moms of Liberty.

Let's look at who's funding Florida Citizens Alliance?

https://www.transparencyusa.org/fl/pac/citizens-alliance-for-floridas-economy-61...

The Latest Top Donors (Total Donations - Name):
1. $160,000 - Conservatives for a Better Florida
2. $147,500 - Dade First PC
3. $120,000 - Serious Conservatives PC
4. $100,000 - Floridians for Economic Advancement
5. $95,700 - People for Coastal Common Sense

These are all political action committees,
which are elections fundraisers.

Top Expenditures:
$440,000 total to Common Sense America Election Fund Federal

Republican (conservative) Governor DeSantis is running for reelection this season. Election Day is Tuesday, 8th of November.

Ah, I'm sorry, I intend to also create touchstones.

The VICE Motherboard article "Anti-LGBTQ Groups Are Helping Enforce a ‘Book Ban’ Law in Florida" mentioned a few books by name.

While M4L members have recently made headlines for harassing teachers and librarians at school board meetings, FLCA has been active for longer. In 2019, the group released a report called “Porn in Schools” which listed children’s books written by queer and Black authors, including The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris, and Two Dads by Carolyn Robertson.

Headlines from ALA OIF's latest Intellectual Freedom News blog post...
https://www.oif.ala.org/oif/intellectual-freedom-news-11-04-2022/

• "Challenged book ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower’" removed from Escambia Schools for sexual content | NorthEscambia.com (FL)
http://www.northescambia.com/2022/11/challenged-book-perks-of-being-a-wallflower...

Flagler schools have been quietly banning or ‘removing’ many books since summer in bow to ‘Moms for Liberty’ | Flagler Live (FL)
https://flaglerlive.com/182735/book-bans-flagler-county/

The school district has been quietly and steadily banning or removing books from library shelves at Flagler Palm Coast High School, Matanzas High School, Indian Trails Middle School and Buddy Taylor Middle School since summer, FlaglerLive has found.

Lucky, by Alice Sebold: banned.

Push, by Sapphire, banned.

A Court of Mist and Fury, by Sarah Maas, banned.

The Upside of Unrequited, banned.

The Haters, the book by Jesse Andrews, banned.

l8r g8r, Lauren Myracle’s novel, banned.

{...}Thirteen Reasons Why {was also removed over the summer. Then...?}

Just one book survived the Oct. 26 committee meeting: Sold, the Patricia McCormick book about the human trafficking of a minor girl sold into slavery. “The committee determined this resource is appropriate for use and should be retained as a resource available to teachers and students in our media centers. We do understand that not all books are appropriate for all students,” Bossardet wrote McDonald in a memo on Oct. 28.

As of that day, there were still many titles awaiting “review” by school committees: The Nowhere Girls, The Upside of Unrequited, Crank, The Truth About Alice, Last Night and the Telegraph Club, The Black Flamingo, Damsel, What Girls Are Made Of and Breathless.

Last year's ordeal over All Boys Aren't Blue was brought up for a comparison.

• "Broward schools memo on banning and restricting library books spurs controversy" | South Florida Sun Sentinel (FL)
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/education/fl-ne-broward-schools-book-bans-2022...

• "Moms for Liberty banned book list–The novels they want taken out of schools" | Newsweek
https://www.newsweek.com/moms-liberty-banned-book-list-schools-1756574

•"Florida school board politics heat up as election day nears" | Tampa Bay Times
https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2022/10/31/florida-school-board-politics...

edited to remove a duplicate link

Lake County Schools are citing the Don't Say Gay bill in banning the children's picture books And Tango Makes Three, In our Mothers" House, and A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo from (at the least) kindergarten through third grade classes.

Seminole County Public Schools has similarly banned 10,000 Dresses, Jacob’s New Dress, and I am Jazz.

The books were already in collections. They were removed from the districts' libraries.

Older elementary age students who somehow learn of the books without help from inside the schools and are assisted in the process to read the books without class discussion must have a parent provide written consent to pick up the book from the principal or designee at the school. In simpler words, the books are restricted from all students and teachers in within school boundaries.

Source: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/01/373813/

"Lake County Schools is the 19th largest public school district in the state of Florida, serving approximately 42,000 students." The district falsely asserts that it "does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, genetic information, age, pregnancy, disability, or marital status in its educational programs, services or activities, or in its hiring or employment practices."

Source:
https://www.lake.k12.fl.us/

"Seminole County Public Schools (SCPS) is the 12th largest school district in Florida and is 60th nationally with more than 67,000 students and 10,000 employees." It claims, "The School Board does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex (including sexual orientation, transgender status, or gender identity), disability (including HIV, AIDS, or sickle cell trait), pregnancy, marital status, age, religion, ancestry, or genetic information which are classes protected by State and/or Federal law in its programs and activities, including employment opportunities."

Source: https://www.scps.k12.fl.us/

The bolding in the quotes is mine.

With a hundred thousand students, there's an estimated ten thousand LGBTQ students. (This includes the younger children, who would be learning the expectations of relationships and gender. Third graders have crushes and do notice when their assigned gender feels wrong.)

That's more than 10,000 LGBTQ students in two counties.

Tens of thousands more likely have LGBTQ parents, close relatives, or friends from other school districts. Undoubtedly, some of the teachers are, as well.

They're all essentially being told their existence is inappropriate when the few books with relatable characters are banned.

Florida teachers forced to remove or cover up books to avoid felony charges
State's new bill goes into effect prohibiting material unless deemed appropriate by a librarian or 'certified media specialist'

School teachers in Florida’s Manatee county are removing books from their classrooms or physically covering them up after a new bill went into effect that prohibited material unless deemed appropriate by a librarian, or "certified media specialist". If a teacher is found in violation of these guidelines, they could face felony charges.

The new guidelines for the Florida law, known as HB 1467, outline the books be free of pornographic material, suited to student needs and their ability to comprehend the material, and appropriate for the grade level and age group.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/24/florida-manatee-county-books-cer... (Guardian, 2023-01-24).

Wow. So, basically, Florida is replacing a blacklist of banned books with a go-list of certified books? Isn't that a bit extreme, even by Florida standards?

The article mentions "With only a few or even one media specialist present in each school, the process to vet books is lengthy". So are these go-lists being created at school level, and not even at state or county level?

>36 Cynfelyn: that article is not entirely correct if we're considering all of Florida. There's often only a few or even one media present in each school district.

Each district can have hundreds of schools. Manatee County (with more than fifty-thousand students) is mid-sized. It has over thirty elementary schools, which are currently affected the most by book censorship laws.

I don't know about Manatee County, but I know some districts have only one, separate media center, consolidated from libraries previously pulled out of schools.

The situation is worse than these articles describe. (It's worse than what I can get my mind around, which is why I'm editing this response to include numbers from MCSD's website.) I think even the most well-intended journalists are struggling to report the scope of these state efforts to suppress unapproved reading.

The Guardian is British, and you know, it's not a good sign that Americans are more likely to learn about our own political conflicts from foreign sources than local news.

There is also news from the inside. Unfortunately, it's usually difficult to access. Provided by the ALA's OIF:

"New state rules tell school librarians to ‘err on the side of caution’ when picking books" | Sun Sentinel (paywalled)
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/education/fl-ne-state-board-school-libraries-2...

"State education officials pass rule on schools’ library book choices" | My News 13 (with paywalled video)
https://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/news/2023/01/18/state-education-officials-pa...

"New training tells Florida school librarians which books are off-limits" | Education Week
https://www.edweek.org/leadership/new-training-tells-florida-school-librarians-w...

That last article mentioned Florida Association for Media in Education (FAME) but not its website, https://www.floridamediaed.org/. A form on FAME's site allows educators in Florida to ask for help in dealing with specific book challenges.

I thought of >27 aspirit: while reading this interview, "A Prison Art Community On the Power of an Annual Exhibition in Michigan to Support More Than 700 Incarcerated Artists".

https://www.thisiscolossal.com/interviews/prison-creative-arts-project/

"It’s a little bit of a fool’s errand to look for logic when they have these restrictions," said the faculty director with the Prison Creative Arts Project. "It’s really about power. It’s about exercising power and making it known that you {running the prison system} have that power {over incarcerated people}."

That's why coloring books and books that can be used for drawing references are restricted. Artists reclaim power over themselves by making art.

"Florida Teachers Are Emptying Out Their Libraries to Avoid Felony Charges: Teachers and parents have been sharing photos and videos that show rows and rows of empty or covered-up bookshelves in the wake of a dystopian directive" starts an article by Rodlyn-mae Banting at Jezebel.
https://jezebel.com/florida-teachers-are-emptying-out-their-libraries-to-av-1850...

School districts named: Manatee and Duval Counties.

Here's more from within these areas.
• Manatee: https://www.wfla.com/news/local-news/manatee-county/manatee-teachers-covering-cl... (with video)
• Duval: https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2023/01/27/parents-react-to-empty-classroom-... video)

Related:
• Pasco County will use almost three million dollars of federal coronavirus relief money to replace K-5 classroom libraries in an attempt to comply to Florida’s new book censorship. See https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2023/02/04/pasco-replace-k-5-classroom-l....

A new judges' ruling follows the >18 aspirit: case against HB 7.

https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/03/16/appellate-ruling-means-professors-are-free...

I'm really amazed that "Oh, no, a huge publisher won't complete an obscure comic series about a famous cartoon character who has many comparable series already" gets cries of "Censorship!"

So does the outrage invoking Dahl's name. Like, "How dare a publisher revise a work by a recently dead author, who already had similar adaptations in his lifetime, for reach into countries where the older, widely-distributed books haven't been selling well!" Somehow that's egregious censorship?

I haven't figured out how this is unsettling so many people while full books bans and the dangerous chaos in states such as Florida don't.

Linked below is an interesting article I don't remember giving much attention in November.

"Inside Florida Clay County School District" by Kelly Jensen shows how one person is challenging thousands of titles.

https://bookriot.com/clay-county-district-schools-book-bans/

It of course remains relevant. The latest expansion of Florida's "Don't Day Gay" legislation from early elementary school grades through high school is thought to make Bruce Friedman's censorship push easier. (Note this this is not the American author by the same name.)

https://www.metroweekly.com/2023/05/florida-legislature-expands-dont-say-gay-law...

Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives has revived its federal Right to Read bill to support school libraries that want to provide reading material to students and schools' educators.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/921...

The proposed Right to Read Act is "supported by the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, PEN America, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and the American Library Association (ALA) and its division, the American Association of School Librarians (AASL)" according to one of its sponsors. These organizations have been promoting diversity in library collections.

https://www.reed.senate.gov/news/releases/as-some-states-seek-to-ban-library-boo...

Initial source for all this news: BookRiot at https://bookriot.com/2023-right-to-read-bills/

Sometimes it requires the abuse of a stupid law before everyone acknowledges how stupid it is. Doubt we'll see much if any improvement in Florida until De Santis runs out of time, though.

"Right to Read" has a nice ring to it.

Amanda Gorman 'gutted' after Florida school bans Biden inauguration poem
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/24/amanda-gorman-poem-ban-florida-s...

"(The single complaintant) told the Miami Herald she was "not for eliminating or censoring any books" but wanted school materials to be appropriate for children. To support her complaint of indirect "hate messages" supposedly contained in The Hill We Climb, Salinas specifically referred to two pages of the published version of the poem. They read:

We've braved the belly of the beast.
We've learned that quiet isn't always peace,
And the norms and notions of what 'just is'
Isn't always justice.

and

And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow, we do it.
Somehow, we've weathered and witnessed
A nation that isn't broken, but simply unfinished."

The first one reminds me of Tacitus's imagined speech by Calgacus to his troops before the Battle of Mons Graupius against the invading Romans in what is now Scotland in 85 AD: "ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant" (they make a desert and call it peace).

When simple true words like these are being banned, complaints from folks like De Santis claiming others are too "woke" are erroneous and count as nothing next to the censorship he's aiding and abetting. You can judge how weak a political position is by what it can't stand to hear.