On bookbanning
How does bookbanning effect America through the lens of Escambia county - Florida.
Book banning has been a hot topic issue for a couple of years, with its peak happening from 2020 till 2024. The main battleground of the movement seemingly being Escambia County Florida. Here a list of 1600 books have been taken off the shelf of libraries, as of the ninth of January 2024 (Kanopi_Admin, 2024). This includes for example: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut and The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende (Goldberg, 2023). Upending and creating a divide in the community all started with one highschool English teacher and her wish for a restriction on what she deemed inappropriate content for her students.
In this research I'll be getting into and creating context for the reasoning, the parties involved, their motivations and the current stance of the issue.
This topic first came to life for the community of Escambia County In the year 2022 when two bills were introduced under the care of Gov. Ron DeSantis. First dubbed “the Parental Rights in Education Act”, and later known as the “don't say gay act”, this prohibits education on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade (Davis, 2022). Then later that year another bill was introduced to the Floridian Education System (House Bill 1069 (2023) - the Florida Senate, n.d.), House Bill 1069. This bill allows anyone residing in the county to review all books in school libraries and classrooms. They can object to anything they don’t like. Getting it taken off the shelf for review (Cortez, 2024).
This law gives the School Boards full authority over any content, materials and lesson planning within the school or library. Furthermore this bill has restricted teachers from entertaining education via books they themself deem suitable for the students in their class.
The process of getting a book approved for both student and teacher are the same. First a permission slip has to be signed by the parental figure of the children in question. Every parent has to be in agreement about the material for the teacher to be able to use this in class. This also goes for books that are not on the ‘banned’ list but just are not named on the approved materials and curriculum. If the parents object to a book, the media specialist that is hired by the school district has to come and look at the book(s) in question and determine if they are suitable, with the definition of suitable differing from person to person (Alter, 2024). After this step the media specialist writes a recommendation to the school district board of education. During the last step the parents can comment on the advice of the media specialist in a school board meeting, from where the school board makes a decision if the book(s) are appropriate or are to be removed from the school premises. This includes books in a teachers' private collection located in their classroom (Frank, n.d.).
After the introduction of both bills there had been pushback from parents and organizations in Florida that do not wish to see the banning of literature within educational systems. They are arguing that the banning of books is directly opposed to the first amendment and thus unconstitutional (Sullivan, 2023). This lawsuit against the Florida Board of Education claimed that the book banning disproportionately affected LGBTQIA+ and racially themed literature (PEN America, 2024c).
In one instance, the district review committee had voted in favour of retaining a book. After this voting took place the School Board of Escambia County chose to override this vote and ban the book from all school libraries in the County. Below is an excerpt from the legal complaint submitted by the plaintiffs in the case from October 2024, Escambia County School Board vs. PEN America and plaintiffs.
“Johnson’s book All Boys Aren’t Blue is a “memoir of growing up Black and gay” in the form of a series of coming-of-age essays. All Boys Aren’t Blue was challenged in September 2022. Despite a unanimous vote by the district review committee in favour of retaining the book in highschool libraries, the School board voted to remove All Boys Aren’t Blue From all libraries on February 21, 2023.”(PEN America Complaint.pdf, n.d.)
In the document named above, the factual complaints from PEN America and plaintiffs against The Escambia county school district are layed out. In section B and C - IV “factual allegations”, a connection is made to Vicki Baggett, an English teacher in Escambia County who went to the School Board to fill out a form to request the reconsideration of certain media within the school libraries.
When Baggett was setting up her booklist to bring to the school council for review she used a grading and filing system taken from a website called Booklook.org. Here you can find a list of books, with attached rapports rating them from a one to a five on the UBC rating scale (UBC Rating System | Book Look, n.d.). This book rating is adopted and then used to compile what is known as “the list”, consisting of 116 titles that are identified by Baggette as “should be evaluated based on explicit sexual content, graphic language, themes, vulgarity and political pushes”(PEN America Complaint.pdf, n.d.). When Baggett tried to get “The perks of being a Wallflower” removed from the choice reading list for a highschool class assignment, the school panel voted to keep the book. She did not agree and went to the Assistant Superintendent at the time, he called another meeting but this time with another committee. Again this committee voted to keep the book in rotation. Baggett did not agree and went to the County School Board, who, since 2022 have the ultimate veto power to remove any and all study material from school grounds. Finally the School Board granted her request and removed the book from all libraries in Escambia county. Which in turn created the grounds for the lawsuit Escambia County School Board vs. PEN America and plaintiffs.
Trained librarians, scholars and Teachers all fall under a group with a unique position towards literature. Kevin Scott, the English department chair at the University of West Florida is of the opinion that removing titles from school libraries is closing children off from the world by taking out the stories of people who differ from them. And thinks this so-called “crusade” against literature has no place in the school system (Misencik, 2022). The librarians feel like they have no trust placed in them by the school district. One of the librarians named Susan Ingram felt this way, when they started to ask her to take titles off the shelf and place them behind her desk. When students would come asking for it she’d have to send them home with a permission slip. “Luckily, their parents signed. But what if they hadn’t?” (Kirpalani & Natanson, 2023). After this the law changed again. All the books Ingram wanted to buy for her library and personal collection on sight, needed to be approved by a committee that consisted of two teachers, a parent and someone who lives in the county. Ingram retired three years before she had planned because of the lack of trust the School Board had given librarians (McArdle, 2023). Heather van Sickle is a teacher in Escambia County and feels she is unable to teach. “I was told to clear out my classroom library. I was supposed to box up the nearly 500 books I’d spent 15 years collecting, take them away and look through every single one to figure out if it might be a problem.”(Kirpalani & Natanson, 2023). She said no, as did others in the district. making the School Board revisit the method of cataloging. They came back with the plan to make note of every single title in the collection that teachers had accumulated. Then a media specialist comes to look and take away the books that are not also in the library of the school. Without this trust there is a group of teachers that feel unable to do their jobs.
A substantial amount of the titles on “the list” compiled by Baggett have to do with LGBTQ+ themes and/or themes of race and racism. A minimum of 42% of authors who are on that list are non white of are a part of the LGBTQ+ community and 59% of the books are related to race or LGBTQ+ identity.(In Key Win, Judge Says Escambia County Book Banning Lawsuit Can Proceed, n.d.). Next to these percentages a selection of Young Adult fiction landed a spot on “the list” because of explicit language or the naming of religions other than christianity. One of the LGBTQ+ titles being Drama by Raina Telgemeier, “the objection to this book by Baggett was based solely on the reason that the main character identifies as gay”(PEN America Complaint.pdf, n.d.). However, the exact quotes used by Baggett to object to this book seem to be copied off of the Booklook.info website. With typo’s in the Booklook.org reports matching in the objection forms Baggett submitted. This pattern appeared in other complaints of the 116 books that subsequently got taken off the shelf for review by the viewing committee and School Board.
When a book goes under review they are stored in a restricted section away from students and teachers until they are reviewed (Allen, 2024). Students are able to reach these books by having their parent or caretaker fill out an “opt in” form for the specific book they want to check out. Superintendent Tim Smith told the Pensacola News Journal (2022)"One person put forth a lot of book titles, and so then it became, 'Well, this process is not a fast process. So, what do we do with a book that's been challenged?'".
An important part of said process is the reviewing of the literature, who is doing it and how they are doing it. “Smith said a district book needs to go before several different boards before being completely banned, such as the School Materials Review Committee, District Materials Review Committee and eventually, the School Board. Each book is read by each member of each committee. The book is then analyzed for its literary value, as well as how successfully it complies with state law, before being given the green light to be placed back on the shelf.”(Dara Kam, Pensacola News Journal, 2024). This process is instated to ensure the literary value and age appropriateness of the books. However, this varies from person to person, their political, religious and overall beliefs play a role in their perspective and ultimate decision of the “value” of the book in question.
There are also groups who are vehemently pro the system that is currently in place. Pastor Gary Porter is speaking on behalf of himself and members of his church asking him to stand up and represent them. “I heard the stuff in these books and I thought, Wait a minute. The sexual information in these books, I didn’t encounter until I was a teenager. A child doesn’t have the cognitive skill to process that. These books are answering questions that children aren’t even asking”. Pastor Gary feels like the content in the books is leaning towards indoctrination, mainly focussing on LGBTQ+ themes and same sex parents. (Kirpalani & Natanson, 2023). "This is not about banning, this is about making sure that our books, even at the library level, are age-appropriate and content-appropriate. That's it in a nutshell. Says Baggett" (Brittany Misencik, Pensacola News Journal, 2022). The church community, Pastor Gary and Baggett are of the opinion that the current system is functioning as it should, protecting the minds of children by weeding out the literature that could harm them.
In October of 2024 PEN America and plaintiffs won the lawsuit stating that the 116 books should be placed back into the library on grounds of the first amendment. However, it was a meager victory, placing only 24 books back on the shelfs of Escambia County libraries (PEN America, 2024e). The laws in place that give Escambia County School Board veto power to ban books are still in effect. This also goes for the fact that anyone within the county can object to and consequently place a book under review, taking it back into the restricted section. This system in itself and the active use of this system by citizens under Florida law are the reason there are currently 1600 books on the “ban” list in Escambia County. Concerned citizens and church communities making full use of the reporting forms for the protection of young minds against indoctrination and exposure to sexual topics (, Pensacola News Journal, 2024). Parents and organisations disagree with the banning of books for all children, that every parent should choose for their own child not everyone else's. Dividing the community into two camps, jobs are lost, institutions are undergoing structural change and outside organizations meddling in the proceedings of this social issue in Escambia County Florida.
, Pensacola News Journal. (2024, July 29). Florida saw 148% increase in book bans since 2021. How many were in Escambia County? Pensacola News Journal. https://eu.pnj.com/story/news/education/2024/07/29/escambia-county-book-ban-how-many-books-have-been-banned/74560946007/
Allen, J. (2024, October 7). PEN America v. Escambia County School Board. Protect Democracy. https://protectdemocracy.org/work/pen-america-v-escambia/
Alter, A. (2009). Book Bans Continue to Surge in Public Schools. The New York Times. Retrieved November 19, 2024, from https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/16/books/book-bans-public-schools.html
Brittany Misencik, Pensacola News Journal. (2022, October 4). 100+ “questionable” books placed in restricted section while Escambia schools review them. Pensacola News Journal. https://eu.pnj.com/story/news/local/escambia-county/2022/10/04/escambia-county-banned-books-over-100-books-reviewed-ban/8166391001/
Cortez, E. (2024, October 15). Parental Rights: Florida’s flawed defense of book bans — Columbia Undergraduate Law Review. Columbia Undergraduate Law Review. https://www.culawreview.org/journal/parental-rights-floridas-flawed-defense-of-book-bans
Dara Kam, Pensacola News Journal. (2024, November 22). In reversal, Escambia School Board members must testify in book removal case, judge says. News Service of Florida. https://eu.pnj.com/story/news/education/2024/11/22/escambia-county-school-book-ban-judge-says-board-members-must-testify/76482590007/
Davis, W. (2022, March 8). Florida Senate passes a controversial schools bill labeled “Don’t Say Gay” by critics. WUWF. https://www.wuwf.org/2022-03-08/florida-senate-passes-a-controversial-schools-bill-labeled-dont-say-gay-by-critics
Frank, L. (n.d.). Welkom in Washington | Laila Frank in Amerika. BNNVARA.
Goldberg, M. (2023, May). If You Care About Book Bans, You Should Be Following This Lawsuit. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/19/opinion/book-ban-escambia-florida-lawsuit.html
House Bill 1069 (2023) - the Florida Senate. (n.d.). https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1069
In key win, judge says Escambia County book banning lawsuit can proceed. (n.d.). PublishersWeekly.com. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/94067-in-key-win-judge-says-escambia-county-book-banning-lawsuit-can-proceed.html
Kanopi_Admin. (2024, September 7). More than 1,600 books banned in Escambia County, Florida. PEN America. https://pen.org/escambia-county-florida-banned-books-list/
Kirpalani, R., & Natanson, H. (2023, December 21). The lives upended by Florida’s school book wars. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/12/21/florida-school-book-bans-escambia-county/
McArdle, E. M. (2023). Book Bans and the Librarians Who Won’t Be Hushed. Harvard Graduate School of Edjucation. Retrieved November 19, 2024, from https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/ed-magazine/23/11/book-bans-and-librarians-who-wont-be-hushed
PEN America. (2024c, September 20). Banned in the USA: Narrating the Crisis - PEN America. https://pen.org/report/narrating-the-crisis/#heading-6
PEN America. (2024d, October 9). Victory for Freedom to Read, as Escambia County returns 24 restricted books to school library shelves - PEN America. https://pen.org/press-release/victory-for-freedom-to-read-as-escambia-county-returns-24-restricted-books-to-school-library-shelves/
PEN America Complaint.pdf. (n.d.). Google Docs. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VQ7ON0yB81Zxouf7LHu0xk33v_7Qy2O4/view
Public Book Reports | Book Look. (n.d.). Book Look. https://www.booklook.info/public-book-reports
Sullivan, B. (2023, May 18). Penguin Random House and 5 authors are suing a Florida school board over book bans. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2023/05/18/1176879171/florida-book-ban-lawsuit
UBC Rating System | Book look. (n.d.). Book Look. https://www.booklook.info/ubc-rating-system