Book ban opponents outside Palm Beach County School District HQ
A few dozen book ban opponents waved signs at traffic outside school district headquarters
thσmαѕ cσrdч, Palm Beach Post
Author Stephen King learned his books have been pulled from some Florida public school libraries, and he’s not happy about it.
“Florida has banned 23 of my books,” King wrote in a weekend social media post. “What the (expletive)?”
That short statement from the now Sarasota County-based writer has gotten 18 million views and counting on X, formerly known as Twitter.
An important note: The Florida government doesn’t directly make school bookshelf decisions, leaving that to local school leaders. But free expression advocates have blasted Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-dominated Legislature for passing laws in recent years that have significantly driven a state surge of school book removals.
They have also accused the DeSantis administration of giving bad guidance on those laws. Interpreting the new state standards on bookshelf decisions in dramatically different ways, officials have removed hundreds of books in some school districts and few to none in others.
“I know Stephen King happens to write for an audience generally considered adult, but we do have adults in high schools,” said Stephana Ferrell of the Florida Freedom to Read Project, a book access advocacy organization. “Many of his books do not contain content that would be considered obscene or pornographic by anyone’s standards.”
While King did not elaborate on the “23” figure in his post, Ferrell believes he could be referring to Escambia County, where a similar amount of his books have been removed pending review.
The county, which is on Florida’s westernmost tip, has drawn a couple of federal lawsuits for its book removals.
That hasn’t been the case in Sarasota County, where King lives. Ferrell’s group hasn’t found any documented removals due to allegedly inappropriate content there; however, some of King’s titles were weeded out for reasons like poor condition.
A search of Sarasota County school library catalogs shows a number of King books still on high school shelves, including “The Stand” and “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.”
Meanwhile, both have been pulled in Clay County. Around 70 King books were challenged there by a conservative activist and removed by school officials last school year.
So were classics like “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker, “Song of Solomon” by Toni Morrison and “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess.
“It’s not just about his books. It’s just not just about 23 books,” Ferrell added. “It’s about the thousands that have been removed over the last few years.”
King has been a frequent critic of the DeSantis administration. While the governor’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment, other Florida higher-ups were quick to weigh in.
“Could you give us a list? I bet I can buy all of them at the local bookstore,” said Evan Power, the chair of the Republican Party of Florida, in a X post.
Many conservatives, including DeSantis, have disagreed with the term “book banning” and maintained that’s not happening in Florida.
“Exposing the ‘book ban’ hoax is important because it reveals that some are attempting to use our schools for indoctrination,” DeSantis said last year. “In Florida, pornographic and inappropriate materials that have been snuck into our classrooms and libraries to sexualize our students violate our state education standards.”
The governor has also closely aligned himself with Moms for Liberty, a conservative parents group that is one of the loudest voices calling for book removals.
The pushback has not slowed the lawsuits over book removals and related policies, including one in which Ferrell is a plaintiff.
The latest lawsuit was filed just last week, with six major book publishers and several prominent authors suing over what they call “unconstitutional book banning.”
This reporting content is supported by a partnership with Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. USA Today Network-Florida First Amendment reporter Douglas Soule can be reached at [email protected].
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Publish date : 2024-09-03 22:09:00
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