FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — School districts in the state, including Duval and Broward counties, recently removed more books from shelves. It's an issue that isn't going away and one the Florida 24 Network has been covering for months now.
According to PEN America, a global organization that protects the rights of literature and free expression, during the 2021-2022 school year, Florida had the second-highest number of book bans in the country.
They had 566 bans across 21 districts, ranging from the Panhandle to South Florida. Now, in its Index of School Book Bans, which covers the U.S., PEN America said it's listing instances where students' access to books in schools was restricted or diminished for either limited or indefinite periods of time.
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The governor's office has supported recent book removals, claiming that in some cases, the books provide pornographic material.
"It is pornographic material, and the public school system is not the platform to be exposing them to this, much less without the parent's awareness," Eulalia Maria Jimenez, mother and chair of Moms for Liberty of Miami-Dade County, said.
She's talking about a book called "Let’s Talk About it: The Teen's Guide to sex, relationships and being a human."
It's a book that the Broward chapter of Moms for Liberty filed a complaint against. It was then removed from the school district after Gov. Ron DeSantis's administration deemed it as pornographic.
"If anyone opens these books, and sees the pictures in this book, and reads some of the things these kids are reading on pornographic material and the play-by-play on how to go about being sexualized, it's just not appropriate," Jimenez said.
The book is recommended for ages 14 to 17. According to the publisher, the book covers "relationships, friendships, gender, sexuality, anatomy, body image, safe sex, sexting, jealousy, rejection, sex education…"
The book contains cartoons of sexual activity and body parts. But it's not just this book that has been taken off the shelves.
According to PEN America's Index of School Book Bans from July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022.
"It's perfectly normal: changing bodies, growing up, sex, and sexual health" was removed from two Florida school districts. "Gender queer: a memoir" was removed from four districts, and the same with the book, "I am Jazz."
And it's not just books centered on sex education or the LGBTQ+ community.
"The Kite Runner" and "The Absolutely True Diary of a part-time Indian" were each taken out of six Florida school districts.
"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" was also taken off shelves in five districts in the state.
"You can try to control knowledge, and you can try to limit what people learn, but knowledge always escapes eventually," Avery Anderson said. "So, these students will eventually find this information, and I would rather us see it in healthy spaces, and spaces where they can express themselves and be wrong."
Anderson, with American Stage Theatre in St. Petersburg, started a Banned Book Library featuring many of the books not available throughout the state.
He believes those like "Let's Talk About It" are informational sex education books, not pornography.
"It's down to the intent and the intended usage. There is content that is created in this world that is made for pleasure and pornographic experiences," Anderson said. "That's not what these books were intended for."
Anderson continued by saying, "these are educational stories…it's empowering students to understand something."
Challenging books was kicked into higher gear in March 2022 when DeSantis signed a bill that required more curriculum transparency. It gave parents the right to know all books in school libraries and classrooms and allows them to weigh in on what they think children should and shouldn't be reading.
The governor shared his thoughts last week by saying: "If you have a book that has hard-core pornography in a library that 10-year-olds can access and a parent objects to that, that does not satisfy Florida standards. And it should not be in the library with those young kids, and I think 99% of parents agree with that."
Groups like Freedom to Read share a different outlook, releaseing this statement:
We will say that our organization respects the constitutional process of a committee review that takes into account all three criteria required in the "harmful to minors" statute. This means we don't ignorantly call something pornographic just because it includes sexual content - especially when it is a nonfiction sex education book. Each community should be allowed the opportunity to decide for their school or district what is appropriate. The Governor starting a statewide banned books list for our districts to follow seems at odds with the First Amendment, but that's exactly what he has done by proclaiming certain titles pornography.
Moms for Liberty said that they are continuing to monitor books in order to create what they call "healthy boundaries at school."
The governor's office told Florida 24 Network that for books that are explicit or pornographic, parents have the right to object, and it should be taken off school shelves.
