Florida leads the U.S. by far in school book bans, new report says

Book bans in public schools increased across the country last school year, with Florida leading the nation and responsible for  more than 40% of them, according to a new report released Thursday

PEN America, a free speech and expression group, counted 1,406 book bans in Florida schools, the most anywhere in the country. Texas recorded the second-highest number with 625. There were 3,362 instances of book bans nationwide in the 2022-23 school year, the group said, involving 1,557 books.

In its “Banned in the USA: The Mounting Pressure to Censor” report, the group said book bans nationwide increased 33% from the prior school year. It said the bans were fueled by new state laws and “hyperbolic and misleading rhetoric about porn in schools” by conservative advocacy groups such as Moms for Liberty, which during school board meetings in Seminole and Broward counties Tuesday tried to get books they classified as “pornographic” removed from schools.

“The toll of the book-banning movement is getting worse. More kids are losing access to books, more libraries are taking authors off the shelves, and opponents of free expression are pushing harder than ever to exert their power over students as a whole,” said Suzanne Nossel, chief executive officer of PEN America, in a statement.

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, however, has pushed back against what it calls a “book ban hoax,” saying it was not trying to empty libraries but only to make sure books on the shelves were appropriate for children.

“In Florida, pornographic and inappropriate materials that have been snuck into our classrooms and libraries to sexualize our students violate our state education standards,” DeSantis said in a statement on March 8. He and other Republican leaders, he added, were working to make sure schools are free from “harmful materials that are not age appropriate.”

PEN America’s report classified a “book ban” as action taken against a book as a result of “parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by lawmakers or other governmental officials” that leads to a once-available book being removed or having its access restricted. Its total includes books removed while an investigation is pending or underway.

The Florida Department of Education recently released its own report on books removed from public schools during the 2022-23 school year. Its report counted only those removed because of parent or other resident objections and tallied more than 380.

The books on the state’s removed list included Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Beloved,” Delia Owens “Where the Crawdads Sing,” John Green’s “Looking for Alaska,” Judy Blume’s “Forever” and Margaret Attwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Sex education books with graphic illustrations also were removed.

The Clay County school district, where one father has been challenging books repeatedly, had the most with 177 books removed. In Central Florida, the Osceola County school district removed 21 books because of parent or resident objections, Orange County Public Schools removed six, Seminole County Public Schools removed two and the Lake County school district did not remove any.

The education department report, newly required this year, was the result of a 2022 law that aimed to give parents more ways to review what books are in school and classroom libraries. DeSantis signed that bill with Alicia Farrant, an Orange mother and Moms for Liberty member, on stage with him. Farrant later won a seat on the Orange County School Board.

The law also required new training for school librarians, urging them to “err on the side of caution” when selecting books for their schools.

Last year, DeSantis also signed what critics dubbed the “don’t say gay” law, banning instruction in primary grades about gender identity and sexual orientation, and this year he signed an update (HB 1069) that both expands that law and allows more scrutiny of school books if they deal with “sexual conduct.”

The 2023 law prompted Orange schools to question more titles and remove well-regarded books that included sexual content, among them “Beloved,” “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker and “Howards End” by E.M. Forster, from their libraries, officials said.

The laws have given groups “tools” to challenge books and made educators and school boards fearful, especially as they are vaguely written, the PEN America report said. It also said that the “laws and tactics that emerged in the Sunshine State are also being replicated elsewhere,” leading to similar book bans in other states.

In Florida, Moms for Liberty chapters have been challenging books for the past years but lately by organizing people to read excerpts aloud at school board meetings that include expletives or sexually explicit descriptions, arguing they amount to pornography.

“This kind of stuff is not appropriate in the schools,” said Mishelle Minella, a Longwood resident, at Tuesday’s Seminole County School Board meeting. “It needs to go.”

Moms for Liberty founders Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice, both former Florida school board members, said parents have the right to ask questions about books available in public schools.

“Why does PEN America oppose parental rights? That’s the real question,” they said in an emailed statement. “What’s sad is that so many books in elementary schools contain graphic animations about sex acts. Why does PEN America need children in public school to access blatant pornography?”

But book advocacy groups, such as the Florida Freedom to Read Project, founded by two Orange mothers, say that library books meant to be read independently should not be judged by out-of-context passages nor by whether they are appropriate for public readings.

The group expects more book bans this year.

“23/24 is already trending larger,” it wrote Thursday on X, formerly Twitter.