The decline of Florida’s education system under Ron DeSantis continues unabated. There’s so much craziness going on that it’s hard to keep track. One underlying theme of the DeSantis regime’s current assaults on education are efforts to erase a full and accurate teaching of African American history, and to erase the LGBTQ+ community altogether. The wingnut-led book banning movement is one strand of those assaults, not just in Florida but around the country. Book banning efforts in Florida have been energized by the passage last year of the DeSantis-led “Parental Rights in Education” bill, which bars any discussion of gender or sexuality in classroom instruction (even though the bill doesn’t apply to school libraries, the bill has still fueled complaints to remove books from libraries).
But in what may be a sign of the apparent lack of enthusiasm among voters, even Republican voters, for the Republicans’ anti-woke culture war frenzy, of which DeSantis is the movement’s most prominent and frenzied leader, a new analysis by the Tampa Bay Times shows that the vast majority of complaints filed in Florida over books in school libraries since July 2022 were in just two of the state’s 67 school districts — and the majority of those complaints came from just two people.
The analysis showed that only 26 of the state’s 67 school districts (in Florida, each school district covers a county) received any complaints about books. And of the roughly 1,100 complaints filed, more than 700 (64%) came from just two school districts: Escambia County in the western Panhandle and Clay County near Jacksonville. (By comparison, the state’s 10 largest districts each reported complaints on fewer than 15 titles.) Although these two districts make up less than 3% of the state’s total public school enrollment, they have been the recipients of 64% of all of the state’s book complaints. And more than half of the complaints in those two counties came from just two people: Bruce Friedman, a parent, who is responsible for more than 400 complaints received by the Clay County school district; and Vicki Baggett, a Pensacola high school teacher, who has submitted at least 178 complaints — representing 80% of complaints filed in Escambia County.
The data illustrates how a tiny minority of activists across the state can overwhelm school districts while shaping the national conversation over what books belong on school library shelves.
The Tampa Bay Times reveals how much of a sham these book complaints really are. For example:
Many of Friedman’s written complaints provide little more explanation than “Protect Children!” and “Damaged Souls!” Some of his filed complaints appear to be direct photocopies with only the title and authors changed, the Times found.
And...
On each of her 178 complaints, Baggett indicated she had read “the material in its entirety.” But the Times found that language in many of the complaints appears to be pulled from reviews published by the website BookLooks.org, which flags titles for “objectionable content, including profanity, nudity, and sexual content.”
According to a state filing, the website was launched last year by Emily Maikisch, a member of Moms for Liberty, an increasingly influential group that has been active in the movement to challenge books.
A running theme in many of the book complaints are opposition to anything having to do with LGBTQ+ issues or any reference of any kind to sex. For example, Friedman filed a complaint against the children’s picture book “Arthur” because it depicted a game of “spin the bottle”; Baggett objected to “And Tango Makes Three,” a children’s picture book about two male penguins in the Central Park Zoo who raise an adopted hatchling, because she claimed it promoted an “LGBTQ agenda using penguins.”
The Times provides a full list of all book complaints filed in the state, and actions taken (when known), which includes a suspiciously high number of books by prominent African American authors: “Beloved” by Toni Morrison (Clay County removed it); "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Clay County retained it); "Black Brother, Black Brother" by Jewell Parker Rhodes (retained in 3 counties); "Booked" by Kwame Alexander; "Born a Crime" by Trevor Noah; "Born on the Water" by Nikole Hannah-Jones (that’s a partial list just through the “B’s” — the list goes on and on and on).
The constant frivolous book complaints from just these two people are resulting in a massive waste of taxpayer resources, the Times story reveals. In Clay County, for example, Roger Dailey, Clay County’s assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, personally reviesws every book complaint that the district receives, which takes 10-15 hours of his time each week. “I’ve had weeks totally hijacked by this book thing,” said Dailey. What’s worse, Dailey points out that nobody really cares about this except a few fringe wingnuts.
Most frustrating to Dailey is that removing even clearly inappropriate books addresses a problem that doesn’t exist. Most parents have zero interest in the subject, he said. When the district of 39,000 students allowed parents to limit library access for their kids last year, only six opted to.
“The circulation of these books for high school kids is essentially zero,” he said. “I wish we had a problem of kids reading so many books that they’re coming across problematic subjects. And it breaks my heart to say that.”
It’s all led to a mess in Florida’s school districts, with districts taking confusing and contradictory actions.
School districts are overly cautious when facing ambiguous directives from the state, said Jonathan Friedman, director of free expression and education programs at the free-speech organization PEN America.
That environment of uncertainty empowers activists like Bruce Friedman and Vicki Baggett to lodge book complaints, he said. Administrators can either restrict access to controversial books to preempt or mollify activists, or face the overwhelming task of reviewing and processing potentially hundreds of complaints.
Rather than trusting librarians and media specialists, he said, many counties have given way to a vocal minority, effectively banning books without expert input and with little transparency or accountability.
Without guidance and clarification from state lawmakers, districts will remain in deadlock.
It’s all been too much for Michelle White, who left her job as Escambia County’s media service coordinator in June. She said the lack of guidance and school boards’ constant overruling of specialist recommendations made her work at the district untenable.
One of (White’s) last recommendations to the board was to cover library shelves with black paper until specialists could review the more than 100,000 titles in the district’s 49 schools. When students arrived for the first day of class earlier this month, the libraries were closed.