Florida education officials report hundreds of books removed from schools
Source: The Guardian
Tue 12 Nov 2024 23.10 EST
Last modified on Tue 12 Nov 2024 23.13 EST
Florida’s department of education has released a list of more than 700 books that were “removed or discontinued” from schools across the state after changes to a state law last year that allows parents and residents to challenge the content of library books. This year’s list, which has doubled in size from last year, includes titles such as Beloved by Toni Morrison, Normal People by Sally Rooney, and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.
The list comes after House Bill 1069 went into effect last July, requiring school districts to set up a mechanism for parents to object to anything they consider pornographic or inappropriate. Since then hundreds of titles have been removed from elementary, middle and high school libraries. In Florida, 33 out of about 70 school districts banned books.
American classics such as Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain are among those that have been pulled. Contemporary novels by bestselling authors such as Margaret Atwood and Stephen King have also been removed.
Members of the Florida Freedom to Read Project, a group comprised of public school parents, said the measure has led to an unprecedented rise in censorship, mostly driven by conservative interest groups, and has limited students’ access to diverse literature. “We believe in a fair, thorough, and public objection process that ensures decisions reflect the needs of each school community - not the broad, district-wide censorship we see today that’s inspired by the vague language in HB 1069 and ‘bad book’ lists like this one,” the group said in a statement.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/13/florida-book-bans-removals-education-department-list
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