Dictionaries and encyclopedias are among the more than 2,800 books that a Florida school district has pulled from library shelves in an effort to comply with a law that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed last year.
Judd Legum, author of the Popular Information newsletter, reported Wednesday that the Escambia County School District said the books that have been banned pending further investigation “may violate H.B. 1069,” which “gives residents the right to demand the removal of any library book that ‘depicts or describes sexual conduct,’ as defined under Florida law, whether or not the book is pornographic.”
“Rather than considering complaints, the Escambia County School Board adopted an emergency rule last June that required the district’s librarians to conduct a review of all library books and remove titles that may violate H.B. 1069,” Legum noted. “Each school in Escambia County has thousands of titles. As a result, many school libraries were closed at the beginning of the school year pending the completion of the review.”
1. A Florida school district has removed @MerriamWebster's Dictionary for Students from library shelves, saying it may violate a law championed by @RonDeSantis
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 10, 2024
No, this is not a parody.pic.twitter.com/5Y0RRCZJV2
Florida led the United States in book bans during the 2022-2023 school year, with PEN America documenting 1,972 instances of bans across 37 districts.
“In a state with approximately 70 districts, this means that over half of all Florida school districts experienced banning activity,” PEN noted in a recent report.
PEN, Penguin Random House, and a coalition of authors joined parents and students last year in filing a lawsuit against Escambia County in federal court, arguing that the mass removal of books from school libraries violates the plaintiffs’ “rights to free speech and equal protection under the law.”
A hearing in the case was scheduled to take place on Wednesday. Florida’s Republican attorney is backing Escambia’s school board.
“In a brief submitted by the state of Florida in support of Escambia, Attorney General Ashley Moody argued that the school board could ban books for any reason because the purpose of public school libraries is to ‘convey the government’s message,’ and that can be accomplished through ‘the removal of speech that the government disapproves,'” Legum noted Wednesday. “This is a novel argument about the purpose of school libraries.
In addition to Webster’s Dictionary & Thesaurus for Students and The American Heritage Children’s Dictionary, Escambia County is denying students access to biographies of former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the singer and songwriter Beyoncé, and talk show host Oprah Winfrey, according to a list obtained by the Florida Freedom to Read Project.
The list also includes The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.
“The Escambia County School Board banned most of these books at the request of Vicki Baggett, a high school English teacher in the county,” Legum reported. “Baggett is responsible for hundreds of challenges in Escambia County and neighboring counties.”
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.