The number of books banned in school districts across the U.S. reached a peak this year, a new report says, with Florida leading the way in more ways than one.
The state topped the country in the number of books banned alone, representing 40% of the country’s total cases, with over 1,400 books removed from libraries in the 2022-23 school year, according to a report issued on Thursday by PEN America, a free speech advocacy group. Across the country, over 3,000 books were removed.
But Florida’s influence also extends far beyond the number of books it has banned — the state’s conservative advocacy groups and legislation have helped pave the way for the rest of the country to follow suit.
“Florida is not an anomaly,” said Kasey Meehan, the lead author of the report, titled “The Mounting Pressure to Censor: The Drivers Behind Book Bans,” and the Freedom to Read Program Director at PEN America. “It’s almost like an incubator.”
Florida’s influence
One common theme emerged as researchers studied the success of book bans: The combined presence of conservative advocacy groups and state legislation.
Florida serves as an example of how those forces work together, as state laws allow for and respond to activist groups who challenge books on a local level. A school district’s proximity to a local chapter of such a group is associated with a greater number of bans, according to the report.
Its release comes days after the most recent effort by local chapters of one of the most prominent groups, Moms for Liberty, to recite explicit sections of books at school board meetings this week in Broward and Seminole counties with the goal of having them removed under a new state law, HB 1069. The law, in part, requires school boards to ban books from libraries if their language cannot be read aloud at a board meeting
The group has close ties to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed the law in May. Earlier this month, he appointed one of the organization’s…
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