More books pulled from Hillsborough classrooms after state pressure
A fresh round of books — more than 600, by one estimate — have been taken out of circulation from Hillsborough County classrooms after a letter from state officials ramped up pressure on school district officials.
In a letter last week, Attorney General James Uthmeier asked the Hillsborough County School Board for the 'immediate removal' of materials he called 'patently pornographic.'
His letter echoed one from Florida Board of Education Commissioner Manny Diaz on May 9. Diaz asked district Superintendent Van Ayres to tell the state board next month in Miami 'why you continue to allow pornographic materials in your school libraries.'
Uthmeier's letter pointed out excerpts from the books 'Call Me By Your Name' by Andre Aciman, previously available in three high school libraries, and 'Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts)' by Lev A. C. Rosen, available in two high school libraries. He also pointed to excerpts from 'What Girls Are Made Of' by Elana K Arnold; 'Beautiful' by Amy Reed, available in middle schools; 'Breathless' by Jennifer Niven; and 'Choke' by Chuck Palahniuk, available in some high schools.
'It's shocking that the district is making these materials available to its students,' Uthmeier's letter said.
He said the state's newly created Office of Parental Rights plans to give parents more say in what books could remain.
In a letter to Diaz, Ayres said all titles mentioned in the letters, plus five others, had been removed from the county's schools. He also said all titles on the state's 2022-23 and 2023-24 lists have been taken out of circulation and will be reviewed, even though no objections to them have risen through the district, to 'err on the side of caution.'
In a letter responding to Uthmeier, school district attorney Jim Porter said that since 2022, Hillsborough County has removed 389,073 books from its collection of more than 2 million books, and will continue to 'actively review' its collections.
The district will also consider changing policies to 'strengthen the selection process and weeding of library materials,' Porter wrote.
Stephana Ferrell, co-director of the Florida Freedom to Read advocacy group, estimates around 622 titles were pulled out of circulation as a result of the state's recent directive.
She called it 'a horrible state overreach.'
Until now, Hillsborough County has had a process in place to review objections to materials originating at the school level.
Ferrell called the state's position hypocritical. In response to a lawsuit filed by book publishers about a 2023 law that regulates library materials, the state has argued that the law itself doesn't ban books, but individuals at the district do based on their interpretation. Ferrell said that implies the acknowledgment of districts' abilities to make those decisions.
Diaz' letter acknowledged that, but chided Van Ayres for not removing those books sooner.
Ferrell pointed out that while no objections over the titles mentioned in the state's letters arose in Hillsborough, complaints over 'Breathless' came up in Polk and Flagler counties, where committees decided the book was appropriate for high school students.
'It is very scary, the amount of power that they are using to to just completely negate the voice of the people — the people that have actually taken the time to thoughtfully review, re-read the books, review them, debate them, discuss them, and come to a decision about where they believe the books to be appropriate, if they've decided to leave the books within their community,' she said.
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