Failed Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis insisted on Thursday that Florida is not banning books—while conceding that some school districts have been too liberal in accepting challenges to remove titles on their shelves.
In a press release from DeSantis’ office, the governor claimed Florida book bans are a “hoax,” arguing the state has simply “empowered parents to object to obscene material in the classroom.”
“Still, some have abused this process to object to items including books about Johnny Appleseed, The Giver and even the Bible,” the release continues.
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DeSantis directed education officials to “prohibit bad actors in school leadership positions from intentionally depriving students of an education by politicizing the book review process.”
The press release also called for new legislation to limit “bad-faith objections made by those who don’t have children learning in Florida.”
DeSantis spoke about placing limitations on his state’s book bans during a press conference in Orlando.
“Members of the community, although we like people wanting to be involved in what’s going on, to just show up and object to every single book under the sun, that is not an appropriate situation here and we’ve seen that occasionally,” he said.
In January, a school district in Florida pulled dictionaries off the shelves for review, because they define words like “sex.”
Florida’s controversial HB1069 bill requires stricter controls on sexual education materials and has led to the widespread removal of books about sexual health, as well as LGBTQ+ literature.
