Ron DeSantis’s Bigoted Book Bans
History shows that book bans are never a sign of a healthy society. With that indicator, it doesn’t bode well for Florida as the state’s Governor, Ron DeSantis, limits students’ access to certain literature. Governor Ron DeSantis has taken it upon himself to start a “War on Woke,” which we covered in a previous article. As part of his campaign against “wokeness,” he effectively created a system to streamline book bans in the state’s educational system.
Last summer, the Florida state legislature passed HB 1467, which DeSantis pushed, claiming its purpose was to remove “pornographic material” in schools. Thanks to that bill passed, parents may now submit books for review to remove them from schools. Since its implementation, the Florida school board has removed 350+ books, particularly those relating to gender identity and sexual orientation. They’ve also removed “critical race theory” topics like slavery, the Holocaust, or Native American genocide. Looking at the books being removed from school libraries and classrooms, it’s arguable that the reasoning behind the bans lies in bigotry, not “protecting children.”
Moreover, while it’s one thing for a parent not to want their child to read a certain book, they shouldn’t get to decide what other children can or can’t read just because they don’t like the topic. With the new law, any parent can decide what books all children in the state can read at school. It also enables people without children in school to request book bans.
Given DeSantis’s announcing his run for the Republican nomination in the 2024 Presidential election, his actions in Florida are all the more concerning. So, let’s take a closer look at what’s happening and discuss what that implies for the rest of America should he win in 2024.
Book Bans Galore – HB 1467 (2022): K-12 Education
In tandem with HB 1557 (covered in previous article), HB 1467‘s passage led to the banning of numerous books encouraging racial equality or discussing our country’s discriminatory history from the Florida curriculum.
Citing the Critical Race Theory argument, DeSantis has restricted educators at all levels of education, Pre-K through college, from teaching even basic history involving race. This includes curriculums dropping certain lessons or classes altogether and banning books that discuss race, sexual orientation, gender identity, and really, anything that people report to the state as “woke.”
While this bill revised requirements for the Florida School Board, in those revisions, the state legislature also opened the door for anyone to get books and other materials removed not only from school curriculums but public school libraries as well. The bill’s language allows for the inclusion of in-classroom libraries too. After parents and other Florida residents submitted thousands of books for removal, educators covered up their classroom libraries or removed the books entirely out of fear of breaking the new law that went into effect in July 2022.
Coupled with the Stop Woke Act, the Florida legislature has allowed the interpretation of this law to include anything relating to race, sexual orientation, or gender by parents or Florida residents who want to ban certain books and materials. This directly followed with restrictive regulations regarding the use of verbal terms like “gay” or “trans” in the Parental Rights Education Bill (HB 1557).
The Removal of Books
Many books children in the Florida school system could previously access are now banned from both the curriculum and Florida school libraries. The Florida school system no longer allows historical texts like ‘The Indian Removal Act And’The Trail of Tears,’ which highlights the mass exodus and relocation of the Cherokee people, and ‘The Confessions of Nat Turner,’ – hailed as “a triumph” by The New York Times.
In addition, the new limitations in schools and libraries led to the removal of the cherished and beloved account from a young girl describing the terror and brutality of the Holocaust found in “The Diary of Anne Frank.”
Moreover, the Florida school district removed books involving LGBTQIA+ literature, history, or characters. One such example includes books like “And Tango Makes Three” – a book about a real-life same-sex penguin couple in the New York Central Park Zoo who raised an orphan chick.
Books like these have been removed for claims including “critical race theory,” “indoctrination,” or “sexual indecency.”
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Anyone Can Challenge a Book
The fact that the law allows anyone to submit a book for review to removal, not just Florida parents, means any book is up for review if even one resident objects to it.
According to ABC Action News, by June of 2022, Florida school districts received approximately 300 formal library book challenges in the previous school year. One challenger, 69-year-old retiree Dale Galiano had challenged 17 books at the time of the article’s coverage last year. Galiano admitted she hasn’t fully read the books she’s challenged, saying she read them “in partial.” She claims that God picked her to “have his children taken care of … because [she] took it seriously.”
To make matters worse, the district removes books while pending investigation, ultimately banning them without any real due process of the law. And while DeSantis claims that his administration is not banning books, the fear of retaliation and legal action by the state has educators terrified and taking no chances. Hence, the photos and videos of empty classroom libraries.
According to the website of a conservative non-profit, the Florida Citizens’ Alliance, they believe Florida’s children “are being indoctrinated in a school system that undermines their individual rights and destroys the nation’s founding principles and family values.”
In contrast, one could argue that taking away books from all Florida students based on one group’s beliefs undermines the individual rights of everyone else. And aligning the country’s founding principles with religious ideology violates the separation of church and state.
Here is a list from Florida Insider published in February of books banned and those banned pending investigation.
Beyond K-12 and Book Bans
Ron DeSantis’s “War on Woke” goes beyond the public school classroom. Earlier this year, Chronicle reported that “The presidents of Florida’s 28 state and community colleges said… that they would identify and eliminate, by February 1 [2023], any academic requirement or program ‘that compels belief in critical race theory or related concepts such as intersectionality.'”
After claiming their crusade’s purpose is “protecting children,” the state and state institutions are now limiting access to learning and history for adults. How is that freedom?
Where Do These Limitations on Reading and Learning End?
It’s difficult to wrap one’s head around the severity of the limitations of the curriculum being provided in the state of Florida, let alone the repercussions of the limit on current and historical knowledge. If we as a society are prohibited from accessing our past or discussing our present, how can we be equipped to deal with our society’s future? And if it’s the government prohibiting that access, what does that mean for free speech?
Governor DeSantis hopes to gain a tight grasp on the instruction of the education system in Florida, and it’s unclear how far he intends to spread his influence and what he may attempt to achieve with that control. So far, it doesn’t look good for anyone who isn’t white, heterosexual, or cis-gendered.
And with the implication of his presidential run, there is fear that his policies will leak into the entire country under a DeSantis administration. It calls into question how far he’s willing to go to dismantle democracy to destroy “wokism” and, ultimately, social justice as he claims Florida to be the “Freest state in America.”
To paraphrase John Oliver from his deep dive episode on Ron DeSantis, it seems that the “freest state in America” is only free to behave or think as DeSantis allows.
And there’s a very specific word for that type of person or government.
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