The issue of “book bans” has been at the forefront of the “culture war” in schools in recent years. This derives from the fact that parents in school districts across the country have found books containing content about sexual orientation and gender identity in school libraries. School boards, even in some blue states, have taken action to have these materials removed. Left-wing activists, however, argue that these books should be available to children.
Some states have passed legislation that allows parents to challenge school districts that allow books with this type of content in their school libraries. Predictably, left-wing activists respond to this by weaponizing it.
One state where this has occurred is Florida. On Tuesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new bill into law that narrows the focus of a 2022 law that makes it more difficult for people to ban books in the state’s public schools.
The bill "protects schools from activists trying to politicize and disrupt a district's book review process," the governor's office said in a press release.
HB 1285 ensures Florida will remain the number one state in the nation for education. pic.twitter.com/bU6cjRFoTb
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) April 16, 2024
This move came after liberal activists “weaponized” the initial legislation to try and get books like the Bible taken out of schools, according to the Associated Press.
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"You have some people who are taking the curriculum transparency, and they're trying to weaponize that for political purposes," DeSantis said during a news conference on Tuesday. "And so that involves objecting to normal books."
“The idea that someone can use the parents rights and the curriculum transparency to start objecting to every single book to try to make a mockery of this is just wrong,” DeSantis said the day before the bill signing. “That’s performative. That’s political.”
According to Fox 13 News, during the 2022-2023 fiscal year, there were more than 1,200 book objections in Florida. More than half came from Clay County and Escambia County.
"This is designed, like the governor mentioned before, to allow parents to have a say, allow parents to challenge books that shouldn't be in a school," Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz told the outlet. "But anyone who creates a cottage industry of going around the state and just creating challenges just to gunk up the system and put school systems in arrears as far as reviewing these books, that person won't be able to do it anymore."
