Banned & Challenged Books

House Bill 1467, signed by Governor DeSantis on March 25, 2022, and effective July 1, 2022, requires school districts to be transparent in the selection of instructional materials and library and reading materials. This legislation preserves the rights of parents to make decisions about what materials their children are exposed to in school.

• The bill includes requirements for age-appropriate and developmentally appropriate instruction for all students in prekindergarten through grade 12. The bill: Includes requirements for specific terminology and instruction relative to health and reproductive education in schools and requires that all materials used for such instruction be approved by the Department of Education.
• Extends the prohibition on classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity to prekindergarten through grade 8.
• The bill prohibits district school boards from imposing or enforcing requirements that personnel or students be referenced with pronouns that do not correspond with biological sex as defined in the bill, subject to specified exceptions.
The bill enhances the process for transparency and review of library and classroom materials available to students in public schools and the process for parents to limit student access to materials and make objections to materials. The bill requires the suspension of materials alleged to contain pornography or obscene depictions of sexual conduct, as identified in current law, pending resolution of an objection to the material. A district school board must also discontinue the use of any material the board does not allow a parent to read aloud.
The bill requires that meetings of committees to resolve objections must be noticed and open to the public, and provides an appeals process through a special magistrate.

This bill caps the number of challenges on school materials that an individual can make per year if they don't have a student enrolled in that district. Previously, there were no limits in place on who could challenge books and other educational materials or how many challenges one person could submit.

“LGBTQ+ youth are already struggling with the weight of discrimination both inside and outside of the classroom. HB 1069 does nothing to alleviate the burdensome stigma and isolation that they face. Instead, this impossible-to-comply-with bill intentionally blocks teachers from providing the safe and inclusive spaces that LGBTQ+ youth so desperately need. To be clear: there is nothing inappropriate about being LGBTQ+ or in acknowledging LGBTQ+ issues and people in the classroom. The Human Rights Campaign strongly condemns this discriminatory bill and will continue fighting for Floridians who deserve to exist freely and proudly.”

With about 4,500 book removals, the state topped the nation for the second year in a row. That's according to a report from PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for free speech.
That means the state made up nearly half of all book removals nationwide in the 2023-24 school year.

Major book publishers have sued the US state of Florida over a law that allows schools to ban certain books from their student libraries.
The lawsuit, filed on Thursday by publishers including Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster, argues that Florida’s law violates First Amendment rights to free speech.
The suit names several books that have been removed from school libraries under the law, including works by renowned authors Maya Angelou and Ernest Hemingway.

• Five dictionaries are on the district’s list of more than 1,600 books banned pending investigation in December 2023, along with eight different encyclopedias, The Guinness Book of World Records, and Ripley’s Believe it or Not – all due to fears they violate the state’s new laws banning materials with “sexual conduct” from schools.
• Biographies of Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Nicki Minaj, and Thurgood Marshall are on the list, alongside The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Black Panther comics by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The Feminism Book was banned along with The Teen Vogue Handbook: An Insider’s Guide to Careers in Fashion.

A list of individual books which have been challenged or banned in Florida. Includes location of restriction and reason(s) given. Entries are submitted by LibraryThing members.

Recent changes to state law have empowered parents and residents to challenge school library books and required districts to submit an annual report to the state detailing which books have been restricted in their schools. Florida continues to lead the country in pulling books from school libraries, according to analyses by the American Library Association and the advocacy group PEN America.