As many of you on here already know, the Parental Rights in Education law that Ron DeSantis heavily pushed and that the Florida Legislature passed in 2022 and expanded in 2023 has led to predictably disastrous results in the state. The law has been a key piece of DeSantis’s ongoing attacks against the LGBTQ+ communities, Black history, people of color, DEI programs and efforts — essentially attacking everyone except straight white Christian folks. The law has been such a mess in the state that DeSantis had to come out this week to do some backtracking. But rather than taking any blame for the law, he’s criticizing how people are trying to comply with the law, and saying, of course, that the blame lies not with him and his rightwing cronies but with people on the left who he says are trying to “confuse the issue.” Yeah right.
Here’s a brief refresher of Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law:
The bill aims to expand Florida law to require that books facing objections for being pornographic, harmful to minors, or describe or depict sexual activity must be pulled within five days and remain out of circulation for the duration of the challenge.
It also expands school board jurisdiction to classroom libraries. The bill would allow a parent who disagrees with a district’s ruling on a book challenge to appeal the state education commissioner to appoint a special magistrate to hear the dispute.
Although the law was originally intended to erase LGBTQ+ content and people from all books and teachings in Florida classrooms, its impact has gone far beyond that.
At least 1,400 titles have been pulled from shelves in Florida public schools, more so than any other state during the past school year, according to data collected by the group PEN America between July 2022 and July 2023. Among the titles that have been removed from circulation in some grades are encyclopedias, dictionaries, Toni Morrison’s first book “The Bluest Eye,” and the poem The Hill We Climb, which was recited by poet Amanda Gorman at the Jan. 20, 2021, inauguration of President Joe Biden.
Last August the Tampa Bay Times reported that the vast majority of school book challenges in the state were coming from two people. One of those two people, Bruce Friedman, filed more than 400 complaints with the Clay County School District, with roughly half of those complaints resulting in books being removed from the shelves.
Things have gotten so restrictive in the state, that recently a middle school in the Miami-Dade School District prohibited students from hearing a guest lecture on Black history unless they had a signed parental permission slip.
To comply with the Parental Rights in Education law, the school district since at least November has required schools to get parental consent for activities, including club meetings and events, guest speakers, college adviser visits, tutoring or enrichment sessions and school dances.
Previously, those forms were only used sparingly. Now, even listening to a Holocaust survivor speak requires a parent’s signature.
Things have gotten so bad that, as the Tampa Bay Times notes, yesterday was the first time DeSantis acknowledged criticisms about frivolous book challenges — event though the issue has been ongoing for more than a year.
In true Trumpian fashion, DeSantis blamed everyone but himself for the problems created by the law that HE promoted, that HE pushed the Florida Legislature to pass, and that HE held up as one of the crown jewels of his anti-woke agenda during his failed presidential campaign. With no sense of irony, he blamed “bad actors” that he said are misinterpreting state laws for political gain, although he didn’t specify who those “bad actors” are. However, he did try to blame an effort by the left to “obscure” inappropriate content that parents are concerned about in some sexually explicit titles (huh?). He also tried to blame school leaders who claimed were “intentionally” withholding books. In true DeSantis fashion, it was an odd and muddling response.
DeSantis voiced his support for some aspects of a bill winding its way through the Florida Legislature right now that is intended to respond to backlash against DeSantis’s Parental Rights in Education (which I previously wrote about here). Among other things, the bill includes a provision to fine individuals $100 for a book objection after they have unsuccessfully objected to at least five books in a year.
Florida uber-book banning wingnut Bruce Friedman laughed at this proposal:
“They think the fee will stop me. That’s funny,” (Friedman) said...He said he has more than 5,000 books on his radar, which he lists on his website.
As far as I can tell, the only people using the Parental Rights in Education law for political gain or motivation are right-wing MAGA activists. And if some school teachers and leaders are being cautious in interpreting the vague law, who can blame them. One perceived misstep and they risk facing the wrath of the MAGA hate machine and, even worse, losing their job.
Stephana Ferrell, co-founder of the Florida Freedom to Read Project, pushed back hard against the BS that DeSantis was spinning yesterday.
Ferrell suggested DeSantis was himself engaging in political theater aimed at reshaping the debate about school books, without considering the role the Legislature and his office have played in getting to the current situation.
She said school districts and teachers that removed numerous books from their shelves did not do so to be political.
Rather, they faced new state law, as detailed in a Department of Education memo in October, that required all books with sexual conduct be reviewed for their appropriateness. They also had to look at all books in K-5 classrooms and catalog them online for public consumption.
“It’s just that the law requires them to go through a process,” she said. “That’s not being an activist. That’s following the law.”
I think that the more that DeSantis and his Florida Republican minions try to rein in the book-banning — and thought-banning, really — frenzy that THEY themselves have created, the deeper they’ll sink into a quagmire of their own making. In the meantime, let’s enjoy a little bit of schadenfreude as DeSantis’s anti-woke campaign continues to hopefully bite him in the a**.
