On July 1, 2023, House Bill 1069, also referred to as “Don’t say Gay”, took effect in Florida. The bill prohibited instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom atmosphere from prekindergarten to eighth grade. It allows parents and community members to challenge books that are allowed in the education system. Those challenged books then go into review with a book review committee and goes through a process to determine whether they will be pulled off of the shelves.
A nonprofit organization, Moms for Liberty, are the most publicly known to challenge these books. The reasons for which they are challenged are different pertaining to each book, though the bill describes pornography and obscene depictions of social conduct as what should be going under review.
On September 26, 2023, a school board meeting was held for Volusia County. Some of the members of Moms for Liberty as well as Volusia County residents spoke at this meeting to challenge books that were in certain Volusia high school libraries. They read aloud excerpts containing sexual content in books such as “You Too?” by Janet Gurtler, “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut, “Lullaby” by Chuck Palahniuk, “Nineteen Minutes” by Jodi Picoult, among others.
Meetings such as this one have occurred all throughout the state of Florida. As a result, 1,406 books were banned in the 2022-2023 school year in Florida alone. The state covered more than 40% of book bans in the nation. 33 out of 69 school districts in Florida have taken the process of banning books including Volusia and Flagler County. PEN America keeps track of books being banned on the national scale.
Books have been getting more frequently banned in recent years. One of the trends of the bans were the content that related to the LGBTQ+ community and the black community. Those in the community as well as allies took note of that trend quickly.
In November 2021, Youth Activist Jack Petocz, created “Recall FCSB”, an organization that protested against book ban efforts in Flagler County. The organization was inspired by a former school board member, Jill Woolbright, who made a criminal complaint over the memoir “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson which follows their story as a black and queer American.
“I organized a group of students to rally in front of the next school board meeting,” Petocz says. “We crowd sourced hundreds of books to hand to Flagler County students that were being challenged so we could get that important piece of literature in the hands of people that need that kind of representation.”
During the meeting there were students who spoke inside and set their opinions on the books being challenged. Outside,with the rally, people such as the Three Percenters and others from as far as Virginia went to counter protest. Due to the dual protest, it brought more attention to the public eye. Petocz continues his work as a member of organizations such as “Gen-Z for Change” and “Youth Action Fund”.
Photo from Recall FCSB’s Instagram, @recallfcsb.
Teachers and librarians now have new procedures to follow, because of HB 1069, when putting books on their shelves for the new school year. “All books must be approved by the media specialist before students can access them,” fourth-grade teacher at Spirit Elementary School, Kami Aronson, describes. “The books all have to be scanned into Beanstack app. The media specialist then has to review the titles and either approve, research the title, or deny the book.”
Aronson goes on to explain her thoughts on what these new rules will enforce, “I believe that it will create narrow minded people because the content of what they can read will be narrow.”
Daytona State College has Gender and Sexualities Alliance club, also known as GSA. Club president, River Carroll, discusses her knowledge on book bans, “My mother is an educator, and they actually come in on a regular basis and barcode scan her entire classroom library of books. They tell her what she can and cannot have available to educate kids.”
Another GSA member, Skylar Krampitz, speaks on her ideas for the upcoming years concerning decision making, “I feel like they should bring more younger people in power who may relate to our generation a little bit more and kind of get their perspective on things.” Banning books had been an ongoing topic of discussion and it is expected for that to continue on a wider scale in 2024.
On February 7, 2024, Youth Action Fund held a rally alongside Brevard Students for Change in front of Brevard Countyschool board. Throughout the counties in Florida, Brevard is one of the highest for books getting challenged and banned. The two organizations rallied similarly to Jack Petocz’s Recall FCSB rally by giving out the current challenged books in that county.
Photo from Youth Action Fund’s Instagram, @youthactionfund.
Due to the increase of challenges being made against literature, there will be more groups defending them as seen in 2023. In the current and upcoming school year this pattern is expected to continue.