What should and what shouldn’t students see in their school libraries? It’s not a new debate, controversies over this book or that book have raged for decades, all over the country. However, fueled by new laws, the issue is rising again in Florida.
On Sunday, the conservative group Moms For Liberty sent Broward County Public Schools an email demanding the removal of several books from school media centers, among them “The Kite Runner,” which was an international, acclaimed best seller, and “The Bluest Eye,” by Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison. The group said those books are not appropriate for high school kids because they have graphic, explicit rape scenes. Broward school board member Sarah Leonardi disagrees.
“We see books like 'The Bluest Eye' being targeted, 'The Kite Runner,' and these are books that are part of some College Board classes, AP classes that our kids take, and so I have a concern also about, are students in Florida going to be as prepared for those exams as states that aren’t banning books?” Leonardi said.
In a previous email a few months ago, Moms For Liberty demanded several books written for young readers, most of them dealing with gay and transgender themes, be removed. The Broward school district did in fact remove 11 books from elementary and middle school libraries. In the email sent Sunday, the group cited more books it says “are designed to engage an interest in sexual activity” and are not appropriate for elementary schools, including “Being Jazz,” “My Sister Daisy,” and “It Feels Good to Be Yourself,” which deal with gender issues.
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“They’re targeting trans children and LGBTQ children and those kinds of themes," Leonardi said. "I’m not seeing them target plays by Shakespeare, 'Romeo and Juliet,' which has extremely sexually explicit themes. I’m not seeing them target that."
She said it’s important for all types of children to see themselves in the books they read and wants the school board to set boundaries for the book vetting process.
“Because I think it’s really important that we’re not over-interpreting the law and being overly conservative when it comes to removing material that has educational value for our kids,” Leonardi said.
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That’s the crux of the issue: who determines if a particular book has educational value? School boards will have to hash that out in compliance with state law.
NBC 6 contacted the Moms For Liberty chapter president but she declined to do an interview with us. We also reached out to several school board members for comment, but only Leonardi agreed to talk to us.
