Government

Law Makes It Harder To Get Books In The Hands Of Kids Living In America's Third Most Illiterate State

Imagine school being held up because some smart aleck submitted a copy of ‘A Portrait Of Dorian Gray.’

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Campaigns With Senate Candidate Adam Laxalt In Nevada

(Photo by Ronda Churchill/Getty Images)

When I was a kid, schools did their best to increase access to books. School fairs, getting people registered for library cards, hell, they even gamified it with challenges on who could do the most reading — there were little stickers and fancy folders to boot. Times have changed for Florida. Now, they’re actively turning away book submissions despite being in dire need of them.

Book donations and purchases have been halted in at least one Florida school district for the remainder of 2022 in the wake of a new state law that requires books to be pre-approved by state-certified media specialists, who aren’t currently available…The decision was based on H.B. 1467, which went into effect on July 1 after Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed the legislation in March.

Quite a bold law and requirement to institute in the middle of a statewide teacher shortage. If it were up to me, I’d spend more time working up some laws to address the fact that during the 2021-2022 school year, 10% of the teachers teaching in Florida weren’t properly certified to do their jobs.

The law requires a certified media specialist to inspect all public school material to ensure its appropriateness for children based on their age level and whether the material can be considered potentially harmful. It also requires elementary schools to publish online a list of the books and reading material they make available to students. Books can then be removed from schools if a parent or county resident petitions for their removal.

I get that it’s important to mind the books that kids are reading, but are you really prepared to do that when their teachers’ books are getting glossed over? Whose idea was it to create a new class of employee that can gauge which books get in (opposed to teachers… you know… deciding that sort of thing themselves) in the middle of a statewide job shortage?

This may surprise you, but I was seriously petty child. I’m talking tell-a-kid-they’d-be-a-good-lawyer-instead-of-calling-them-a-brat petty. This scenario is just ripe for an asshole kid (read: me in 4th grade) to fall a class or two behind in their reading and have their parent complain about the book so they don’t have to catch up anymore. Besides the obvious cry of this normalizing censorship-as-freedom a la 1984 doublespeak, I hope that there is some provision that prevents this law from decimating these teachers’ reading itineraries.

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Florida Schools Freeze Book Donations, Purchases In Wake Of Censoring Law [Huff Po]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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