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The chaos in Florida school libraries Judd Legum

Published

1 year ago

August 29, 2023

For months, districts across Florida have purged books with LGBTQ characters and themes from school libraries. The removal of these books followed the passage of the Parental Rights in Education Act in 2022, a bill championed by Governor Ron DeSantis (R) and better known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law. The new law stated that “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3.” The prohibition was later expanded — first by regulation and later by legislation — through grade 12, with the exception of optional sexual education classes.

While the “Don’t Say Gay” law says these restrictions apply to “classroom instruction” — not library books — many Florida school districts used the law as a justification to ban books. Librarians, known in Florida as media specialists, were encouraged to do so by the Florida Department of Education.

A January 2023 training required for all Florida school media specialists emphasized that there was “some overlap between the selection criteria for instructional and library materials.” The next slide says that library books and instructional materials cannot include “unsolicited theories that may lead to student indoctrination.” A subsequent slide lists “unsolicited theories that may lead to student indoctrination.” That list, citing the Parental Rights in Education Act, states that information about “sexual orientation or gender identity” is prohibited for K-3 students.

The media specialists were encouraged to “err on the side of caution” and warned that making books prohibited by Florida law available to students could subject them to third-degree felony charges. Other third-degree felonies, which carry a prison sentence of up to 5 years, include stalking, grand theft, and child abuse. So it’s not surprising that some Florida school districts, acting on their own or in response to complaints by right-wing activists, removed books with LGBTQ content from libraries.

Then, the lawsuits started.

In June, the authors of the children’s book And Tango Makes Three, and several students sued the Lake County School Board, the Florida Department of Education, and other state officials for removing the book from K-3 library shelves. And Tango Makes Three is the true story of two male Penguins, Roy and Silo, who lived in the Central Park Zoo and raised an adopted chick. According to the lawsuit, Lake County school officials explicitly stated the book was being banned based on the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

The lawsuit contends that the removal of And Tango Makes Three violates student rights under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and by “discriminating based on content and viewpoint, it infringes the authors’ right to freedom of expression.” The lawsuit seeks “to stop the abhorrent and discriminatory practice of restricting access to books based on partisan, non-pedagogical motivations.” The plaintiffs ask for both an injunction to put And Tango Make Three back on the shelves and a declaration that Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law is unconstitutional.

In response, the Lake County School Board filed an affidavit on July 13, 2023, from its superintendent, Diane Kornegay. She explains the school district removed And Tango Makes Three in an attempt to comply with the media specialist training produced by the Florida Department of Education.

Kornegay states that, on June 21, 2023, she received guidance from the Florida Department of Education that the “age restriction on sexual orientation and gender identity does not apply to library books.” The guidance included a legal memorandum filed in a separate case challenging the “Don’t Say Gay” law in which attorneys representing Florida state the law “does not even arguably restrict library books.”

Kornegay stated that on June 22, 2023, she removed all restrictions on And Tango Makes Three, in an effort to comply with the Florida Department of Education’s “new guidance.” The judge, therefore, denied the injunction as moot. (The overall case challenging the law as unconstitutional, however, continues.)

There are at least 16 other Florida counties that have removed library books that include LGBTQ characters or themes. Popular Information contacted all of them and asked if the counties would be returning these books to the shelves, consistent with the Florida Department of Education’s new position.

None of these counties appear to be taking corrective action. In response to Popular Information’s inquiry, the counties either denied that the books were removed based on the “Don’t Say Gay” law, said that the books were under review, or failed to respond.

On Monday, the plaintiffs in the Lake County lawsuit filed an amended complaint also naming the Escambia County School District as a defendant. “The state defendants admitted earlier in the litigation that Don’t Say Gay doesn’t apply to school library books, but the state’s knowing allowance of Escambia County to ban school library books shows that the state hasn’t communicated its position, applied it consistently, or done anything to ensure free access to educational books at Florida schools,” Lauren Zimmerman, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said.

Escambia removed And Tango Makes Three from the shelves in response to a complaint from English teacher Vicki Baggett, who said the book pushes an “LGBTQ agenda using penguins.” In an interview with Popular Information last December, Baggett said she was concerned that “a second grader would read this book, and that idea would pop into the second grader’s mind… that these are two people of the same sex that love each other.” Baggett’s former students told Popular Information that she expressed openly racist and homophobic views in class.

Florida school districts continue to ban books with LGBTQ themes

Despite the fact that Florida education officials have clarified that “Don’t Say Gay” does not apply to school library books, school districts across Florida have still not put books that were removed for LGBTQ content back on shelves.

In Broward County School District, the sixth-largest school district in the country, nearly half of the books that have been removed or restricted feature LGBTQ+ themes. One of the books banned from all school libraries is the children’s book A Day with Marlon Bundo, a fictional story about former Vice President Mike Pence’s family bunny. In the story, Marlon Bundo falls in love with another bunny named Wesley, and the two decide to get married. But when the “Stink Bug In Charge” declares that the pair can’t get married because “Boy Bunnies Don’t Marry Boy Bunnies,” the animals in the garden work together to stop the Stink Bug. The book ends with the message, “Love is Forever.”

The book does not contain any sexual or explicit content whatsoever. Common Sense Media, the nonprofit media watchdog group, recommends the book for children ages three and up, and lauds the book for its “positive message about celebrating who you are and loving who you want.”

In October 2022, however, Broward County School District demanded that all school libraries remove A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, after it was challenged for addressing “gender identity content.” The Broward chapter of Moms for Liberty identified the book “as having sexually explicit content or LGBTQ messages the group says violates the Parental Rights in Education law.” One excerpt the group calls out, for example, is the depiction of “two handsome grooms-otters.”

At the time, a district committee argued the book was inappropriate “due to the negativity towards the government.” But this doesn’t add up. One of the positive messages of the book, Common Sense Media notes, is it celebrates democracy. The picture book “introduces the basics of democracy in an age-appropriate way,” Common Sense Media writes.

Additionally, this month, the Miami Herald reported on books that were banned in Broward, including A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo. Based on its review of public records, the news outlet listed “gender identity content” as the “reasoning behind [the] district’s action.”

Popular Information reached out to the school district to ask if the district had plans to lift its ban on A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, given the outcome of the lawsuit against Lake County. The district told Popular Information that it has “not made a decision regarding the title.” The book remains unavailable in school libraries.

In Escambia County School District, a similar pattern is unfolding. Books that were removed for including LGBTQ+ content have not been returned to school library shelves. The school district, for example, removed the children’s book Julian at the Wedding after a complaint was filed by Alisha Sloan. The picture book follows Julian and his cousin Marisol as they attend the wedding of two brides. Common Sense Media gave the book a five-star rating and considers the book appropriate for children three years old and up. “This delightful and visually appealing book celebrates acceptance and love,” the nonprofit writes.

But according to the challenge form, Sloan claims the book “violates HB 1557” and is not “age-appropriate” because of its depiction of “same sex relationships/non-binary characters/alternate sexualities.” As evidence of this, Sloan provides a few images from the book. In one image, she underlines a sentence that reads “Those are the brides, and that’s their dog, Gloria.” She also cites two other pages for including illustrations of same-sex couples.

The book, which is currently under review, has been removed from all elementary school libraries. Escambia County School District told Popular Information it was unable to comment given the ongoing litigation. At this time, Julian at the Wedding is banned from all elementary school libraries.

Similarly, in Seminole County, the school district cited HB 1557 when it restricted access to Jacob’s New Dress from school libraries. The book, which Common Sense Media rates as appropriate for children as young as four, revolves around a boy who likes to wear dresses. The book is currently only available to 4th and 5th graders and requires parental permission and pick-up from the principal. The school district did not respond to Popular Information’s inquiry about if the school district had plans to put the book back on shelves.

Meanwhile, in Clay County School District, the children’s book Julian is a Mermaid has been removed from all libraries. The story revolves around Julian, a boy who dreams of being a mermaid. His abuela is surprised at first to find him dressed as a mermaid, but she quickly comes around and ends up taking him to a mermaid parade. A District Curriculum Council found that the story had a “good message,” but a Challenge Oversight Committee claimed that the story violated Florida’s obscenity law. The book does not include any “sexual excitement,” “sexual conduct,” or any sex whatsoever.

When asked if it planned to restore the book, Clay County School District told Popular Information that they “respect the decision of the committee.”

16 Florida school districts that removed or restricted books with LGBTQ themes

Here are the school districts Popular Information contacted to ask if they were restoring books with LGBTQ themes, along with their responses. All titles listed have been removed or restricted:

Alachua County School District

Books: Ana on the Edge, And Tango Makes Three, Birdie and Me, Call me Max, Julian at the Wedding, Julian is a Mermaid, Melissa (George), My Rainbow, When Aidan Became a Brother

Response: “[E]ach of the titles…referred…were not removed from the library due to a District directive. Ultimately, decisions regarding library books belong to the site-based administrators…There is not a district directive to reinstate the titles in question. That too, would be a site-based decision.”

Broward County School District

Books: A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, Different Kinds of Fruit, It Feels Good to be Yourself, Melissa (George), This Day in June

Response: “A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo has been removed from all libraries. All other aforementioned books are restricted based on grades levels referenced and available in all other libraries. At this time, we have not made a decision regarding the title A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo.”

Clay County School District

Books: A Quick & Easy Guide to Queer & Trans Identities, A Quick and Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns, Julian is a Mermaid, Leah on the Offbeat ,Little & Lion: A Novel, Marriage of a Thousand Lies, Reverie, Trans Mission: My Quest to a Beard

Response: “Julian is a Mermaid was recommended for removal by a committee. Leah on the Offbeat and Little & Lion: A Novel were removed due to violations of Chapter 847. The remaining titles are awaiting committee.” The district shared that they were not reinstating any books because of “[v]iolation[s] of state statute[s] and in the case of Julian is a Mermaid, we respect the decision of the committee.”

Duval County School District

Books: Almost Perfect, So Hard to Say

Response: No response.

Escambia County School District

Books: And Tango Makes Three, Beetle and the Hollowbones, Born Ready: The Story of a Boy Named Penelope, Calvin, Drama, Flor Fights Back, GLBTQ*: The Survival Guide for Queer & Questioning Teens, Girl Made of Stars, Julian at the Wedding, Melissa (George), My Rainbow, The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James, When Aidan Became a Brother

Response: “Unfortunately, because the issues about which you inquire are deeply intertwined in litigation in which we are currently involved, we are really not able to comment at this time.”

Hamilton County School District

Books: Melissa (George)

Response: Declined to respond.

Highlands County School District

Books: And Tango Makes Three, Drama

Response: No response.

Jackson County School District

Books: Drama

Response: No response.

Manatee County School District

Books: Both Can Be True, Families, Families,Families, Fathers Are Part of a Family, I am Jazz, In Our Mothers’ House, Lily and Dunkin, The Family Book, When Aidan Became a Brother

Response: No response.

Martin County School District

Books: Almost Perfect, Ask the Passengers, Drama, Gabi: A Girl in Pieces

Response: No response.

Miami Dade County School District

Books: Daddy’s Roommate

Response: No response.

Okaloosa County School District

Books: Beetle and the Hollowbones, Drama, Girl Made of Stars, The Family Book, Two Boys Kissing

Response: “All of the book titles you have listed below are currently under review by the Okaloosa County School District Review Committee.”

“The books are not available for checkout. Okaloosa County School District is conducting an internal District review of some of its library books whose content might be questionable due to age appropriateness as defined by Section 1006.40 (3)(d), Florida Statutes, and HB 1069 as of July 1, 2023.”

Palm Beach County School District

Books: Ana on the Edge, Call me Max, Calvin, Frankie & Bug, Gracefully Grayson, I am Jazz, It Feels Good To Be Yourself: A Book About Gender Identity, Lily and Dunkin, Melissa (George), My Rainbow, Rick, The Pants Project, Too Bright to See, When Aidan Became a Brother

Response: “Please note, the Florida Statute does not provide for us to respond to questions.”

Seminole County School District

Books: 10,000 Dresses, I am Jazz, Jacob’s New Dress

Response: No response.

St. Johns County School District

Books: Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out, Call Me By Your Name, Felix Ever After, Fun Home, I am Jazz, It Feels Good To Be Yourself, My Rainbow, Trans+, When Aidan Became a Brother

Response: “Please refer to our website for the information you are seeking. We have all book objections listed and their current status. Here is the link https://www.stjohns.k12.fl.us/media/libraries/”

St. Lucie County School District

Books: Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen, Drama, Melissa (George)

Response: “No, they were removed as a result of the book objection process. The reconsideration committees determined the age appropriateness of the books and made a recommendation based on their conclusions. It was not confusion over HB 1557…For example, And Tango Makes Three was challenged and our committee recommended that it remain in elementary school libraries.”

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Learning from Oddballs K.L. Evans

Published

41 mins ago

September 20, 2024

K.L. Evans with her daughter, Ruby LaRocca, the winner of our first-ever high school essay contest. (Photo courtesy of the author)

At the end of August, we ran a special series on What School Didn’t Teach Us, in which Joe Nocera described his path into journalism and Julia the Intern explained why she wanted to try farming before taking up her place at Stanford. (You can catch up with it.)

In response to the series, we got a letter from K.L. Evans, who homeschooled her daughter Ruby LaRocca—otherwise known as the winner of our first-ever High School Essay Contest. Last year, Ruby wrote us a gorgeous Constitution for Teenage Happiness. Reading her mother’s letter—about what you can learn in school, if you have the right teacher—we now get how Ruby ended up so wise beyond her years.

The best students are the bad ones. That was my great discovery in school. I was not belligerent or idle, just a little deviant. Dreamy. I would dodge what I was supposed to be doing and work industriously on projects that were not asked for and would never have been assigned. (Bold, unwieldy affairs that required enormous effort and patience and drew tiny audiences.) I tortured and enjoyed myself. Pondered long and earnestly on how I should make use of my life. I met with many successes but of a kind so marginal they scanned as failures. People found me charming and ridiculous.

My favorite teachers were the same: unpredictable, untidy, gifted in a way that only a handful of people appreciated. They tended to be honest, and so uncertain about their own effectiveness. Both exacting and affable. Bound absurdly to the twin demands of scholarship and art. Never friendless, but often lonely. (I know because eventually I became one of them.) I found my teachers in old books, in novels and plays and films, and occasionally in real life. Some who I knew in person were just assigned to me, and I had the good sense to cling to them like a barnacle. Some wrote books that taught me how to think, and once in a while I would be brave enough to send a letter to one of these hardworking scholars, and the most generous of them would write back. Corresponding with lively intellectuals far beyond my limited circle of acquaintance was almost as exciting as coming to understand with profit those playful, dynamic, radical works of education sometimes called “classics.”

A classic is one of those rare, synoptic books around which a whole life can evolve, or which becomes deeper as one becomes deeper. That’s why classics have what Ezra Pound calls “a certain eternal and irrepressible freshness.” They do not reinforce but challenge our habitual, settled ways of thinking—which is perhaps why so many people assiduously avoid reading them. As the playwright Alan Bennett jokes, “A classic is a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have read themselves.” Of course, school is not the only place one could find readers of such books, but in my experience, school was where you found them. (Even if on the perimeter, without a formal position.)

My point is that the experience of formal education missing from the Editors’ recent investigation into “What School Didn’t Teach You” is the one clung to by the most serious teachers and students: Those eccentrics and oddballs who associate school with the charged, productive space one person opens up for another. The philosopher Stanley Cavell said a teacher is any person who “shows one a way to do relevantly and fruitfully the thing one had almost given up hope of doing.” According to this view, “school” is where students find (only by looking) teachers (not all, not most, but a small, animated faction) game to ward off the stultifying atmosphere in which educators take up a mode of explanation premised on students’ inability—in which teaching assumes the form, “I must explain this to you, since you cannot understand it yourself.” Most people feel fondly about school in proportion to how much they practiced thinking, unraveling difficulties, for themselves.

Schooling as I experienced it and tried to re-create for my students felt less conventional, more bohemian than the kind of pre-professional training the contributors to your series rightly fled—for the farm, the newsroom, or the workshop. A very clever friend of mine (one of those brilliant, legendary, unemployed intellectuals happily occupying what John Ashbery calls the “category of oblivion which increasingly threatens any artist who dares to take his own way”) says that human genius is like grass breaking through concrete; it persists even in situations of institutional hostility. School is and ought to be the straining, daring green and the crushing pavement—minus which the grass ain’t so beautiful.

Do you have a unique perspective on a Free Press story? Can you bring your personal experience or expertise to bear on an issue we cover? We want to hear from you. Send us a letter to the editor: Letters@TheFP.com.

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Introducing the First Class of Free Press Fellows Maya Sulkin

Published

2 hours ago

September 20, 2024

Maya Sulkin is chief of staff at The Free Press. (via The Free Press)

When I joined The Free Press—then called Common Sense—as an intern in 2021, it was run out of a family group chat. Literally.

Texts about what story from the news should we commission mingled with what we should order for dinner, and who was picking up the baby. There was no office, no HR department, and inevitably we went with Thai.

I scored the job the way most Free Pressers do: a cold email. In mine, I wrote about losing friends, grades, and party invites because I was too stubborn—or perhaps too foolish—to censor myself on campus. I told Bari I’d be willing to sweep the floors.

Instead, in my first week on the job, I sat in on an interview with Kim Kardashian from my dorm room. It was the most fun I had in my four years at college in the Covid era. And not just because my personal hero was on the other side of the camera—Kim, not Bari—but because it was the first time in a long time I hadn’t felt alone.

Overnight, I was working with people who left their jobs at places like The New York Times and NPR and Vanity Fair because, like me, they no longer belonged in the places that they worked so hard to get to. They became the most valuable mentors any young person could imagine.

That summer I flew to California and became the first Free Press intern. It was. . . informal. My official interview was with Suzy on FaceTime. Early on I had to Uber a microphone from Andrew Sullivan’s house to Larry Summers’ for a podcast recording. I’ve taken out the trash and furnished an entire newsroom from Facebook Marketplace. I’ve traveled to Israel to cover the war in Gaza and to Palo Alto for an interview with Javier Milei.

We’ve buttoned things up a bit since I started. And we’ve grown. A lot.

I have watched that little family group chat—and an office that was Bari and Nellie’s kitchen table—grow into a full-fledged newsroom. We still think of ourselves as an island of misfit toys, but when I really look, I see a hotbed of journalistic talent, doing agenda-setting reporting. I see an 800,000-person strong community of engaged, freethinking subscribers from all over the world. And we’ve found young journalists who embody our values: honesty, curiosity, respect, hard work, independence, excellence, common sense, and a belief in the American project.

So today, we are thrilled to announce a new initiative: The Free Press Fellowship. It’s a two-year program for reporters and writers eager to pursue the kind of journalism that makes The Free Press live up to its name.

The 2024–2025 Free Press Fellows are:

Julia Steinberg (known far and wide as Julia the Intern) has been with The Free Press since her sophomore year of college. In those two years, she has answered all of your “Where I TGs,” testified before Congress, and reported on the ground at the DNC. As a rising senior at Stanford, she will serve as the editor of The Stanford Review.

Here’s Julia on her time at The Free Press: “This was my second summer at The Free Press. I chose to come back—and work part-time during the craziest school year I could imagine—because I was not treated with kid gloves. Interns are trusted to to pitch, report, and write stories, script podcasts, take on business projects, create videos, and so much more. (And yes, sometimes we make coffee.)”

Evan Gardner, a rising senior at Brown, has also been at The Free Press for two years. In that time, he spearheaded our Olympics coverage, traveled to Nashville to cover country music concerts, and installed Ethernet in our new New York offices. (Thank you, Evan!)

Here’s Evan: “I’ve learned how to follow an exciting idea from the chaos of my Notes app all the way to something worthy of the pages of The Free Press. My writing and my thinking have become more expansive, yet precise. Around the clock, there is never a dull moment with this lean but strong team, and there’s no place I’d rather be as we continue to bring you the history—and the madness—unfolding before us. I’ve never consumed this much Diet Coke in my life. I couldn’t be happier doing it.”

Elias Wachtel came to us this summer after finishing his junior year at Columbia, where he studies ancient Greek and classical political philosophy. He wrote about his time on the Appalachian trail and called for Gen Z to turn to national service. He commissioned freelance pieces, worked with editors, and contributed reporting to stories on West Virginia’s opioid settlement distribution and the psychological strain on elite gymnasts.

Here’s Elias: “The most remarkable thing about interning with The Free Press is that they really care about hearing from us. I was shocked when I first learned I’d be allowed to write and publish this summer—in what other internship is that even possible? Before I started working here, I had been a longtime reader of The Free Press. At first, I was almost scared to see what it was like behind the scenes, lest I uncover some hidden angle, some well-kept secret that would shatter my faith in the project. But the wonderful thing about The Free Press is that it’s just what it promises to be: a small team of fiercely independent, curious thinkers who want to bring you the truth, each and every day.”

Jonas Du became a Free Press intern through a Twitter DM he sent to Bari while reporting the Columbia campus protests back in May.

In his time at The Free Press, Jonas has responded to an Atlantic article that argued conservatives benefit from the hostile environment of liberal college campuses, written about why the “authentic” social media app BeReal faltered, and appeared on NewsNation to talk about what young voters want from Harris and Trump.

“When you’re part of a company that’s truly new and disruptive, you can feel it every day. That’s why working at The Free Press this summer has been the best internship experience I could have wished for. After only a few months at The Free Press, it’s hard to imagine working for the legacy media. Every day, I see the real-world impact that reporters, editors, and producers sitting in the same room as me have on the national conversation. To be a part of that team, especially as a 21-year-old, is an opportunity I am incredibly grateful for.”

Last but not least, we are thrilled to welcome Danielle Shapiro.

Danielle is currently a senior at Princeton University, where she studies political theory and history. She is the president emeritus of the Princeton Open Campus Coalition, which is committed to truth-seeking and academic freedom. Shapiro’s summer internships, at both Tablet magazine and The Wall Street Journal opinion page, have cemented her desire to pursue a career in journalism. “As someone who has been following The Free Press since its inception, I am so excited to join a growing team of motivated and thoughtful writers,” she said.

You’ll notice that the Free Press Fellows this year are all college seniors. You need not be a college student—or have ever gone to college—to apply to the next cohort. Indeed, we are especially keen to consider college-aged applicants from nontraditional or unconventional backgrounds.

If that sounds like you, please apply here to be considered for The Free Press Fellowship program for 2025–2026.

If you’d like to support our Fellowship program, and the next generation of free-thinking journalists, become a Free Press subscriber today:

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