Here’s a brief update of what is happening with the book challenges and removals in Alachua County.
I attended two challenge meetings this week. At Terwilliger Elementary, the book It Feels Good to be Yourself faced a challenge and the committee voted to keep the book at their school. That decision is final unless the parent appeals to the district. The Gainesville High School book challenge meeting took place yesterday after school. I am on the Library Advisory Council for GHS and that meeting ended in a tie with most teachers abstaining from voting. So it came down to me (keep) and one teacher (remove) so this challenge will move to the district and I have resigned myself that they will probably have to pull the book to adhere to Florida law. The book in question is Thirteen Reasons Why, which I read in 2011 and honestly didn’t like very much. So it was odd to advocate for a book I don’t love or like, but this isn’t about me or just one person. I was speaking up for choice, sanity, and freedom from educational censorship, which is a position I’m proud to take even when the material in question isn’t my personal flavor. Both the GHS book challenges and the Terwilliger Elementary book challenges were brought by the same parent.
One of the things I have been asked frequently is “Why is this happening now?” That’s a great question and here’s the deal: When HB1069 (the “Don’t Say Gay” law) was passed, a lot of seemingly small (but huge) changes happened in education. Before July 1st, 2023 it was prohibited to have a book/movie depicting nudity or sexual conduct if it was shameful, patently offensive, and as a whole, without serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. After July 1, 2023, materials that contain “sexual conduct” are prohibited. Full stop. It doesn’t matter if the material has merit or if Shakespeare wrote it, or that it’s a classic that generations of high schoolers have read. If there is any content beyond kissing, it’s considered sexual conduct. By law, educators are supposed to pull the books or they are being told they could be charged with a felony for grooming minors. In my opinion, this is why most of the GHS teachers at the challenge meeting abstained from voting.
And, yes, this will apply to basically any book you can think of and it’s why this week in South Florida Brave New World, The Sun Also Rises, The Color Purple, Invisible Man, Dune, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and around 300 more books were pulled from school library shelves. There really is no end in sight so buckle up and please try to talk to people you know to raise awareness. It doesn’t really matter what their politics are because this is a topic that crosses normal political barriers. 8/10 people don’t approve of pulling books from schools when the parents already have the option of restricting their own child. This is one of the very rare things so many of us agree about right now. You’re just as likely to find a person who enjoys the bi-annual time changes as you are to find a person who supports book bans.
There are two more ACPS meetings next week – the first is an appeal of the books (Being Transgender, Understanding Sexual Identity) we kept at GHS from the first challenge, and a book that Terwilliger kept (A for Activist) and I’ll have a vote for that. The next challenge is at Eastside for a book called Gender Queer, which I haven’t had a chance to read yet, but will try to read over the weekend. I’m going to try to go to the Eastside meeting, but I won’t have a vote for that one.
Also, to answer questions about the book Beyond Magenta that was pulled from all libraries in late September after a parent challenge at GHS. It was our district’s first book challenge and unfortunately, the meeting on September 27, 2023 to discuss the book challenge was not properly publicly noticed by the district as it should have been. The challenging parent was asked to redo the challenge so that the meeting could be done in accordance with the policy and everything would be on the up and up. I am told that the parent told the district to speak to their attorney and ACPS’s request for a redo created waves. It’s important to understand that when a parent challenges a book, the school and district must respond within a certain time period. ACPS messed up and didn’t follow their own procedures and if they forced a redo, the challenging parent would have a case. On the other hand, by not redoing the challenge, the process was not publicly noticed and in my opinion, lacks the transparency and public scrutiny book bans deserve. All in all, it seems like a terrible fumble by our district, and the book remains banned from all public school libraries in our district.
I’d also like to share that I have been doing public records requests about the book bans at various school districts in the state. Most districts have responded to my requests with full documents and communications within three days. My initial request to Alachua County Public Schools was made on 10/17. It took more than three weeks for ACPS to get back to me and instead of the records and communications I requested, they sent me an estimate for nearly $5,000 to have my request completed. Similar requests have been completed by other Florida school districts within days at no cost. That is how public agencies are supposed to work. I believe that the individuals at our district are trying to do the right thing, but when we have to fight so hard for transparency, it makes you question everything.
District tactics and mistakes aside, our community has been great. People have come to meetings to be supportive and I am making some lovely bookish friends. There have also been people who see themselves or a loved one in the stories being challenged. Everyone has shared a story about how reading the right book at the right time affected the course of their lives in the best way. They are showing up to preserve that experience for others and I think it’s wonderful.