This week a Florida judge dismissed a lawsuit that would have allowed parents to challenge a school district’s decision to remove a school library book. The move comes as the Trump Administration is dismissing 11 complaints against school districts for that. But there was a bit of push-back in Tallahassee Thursday night.
Susan Gage, an Episcopal priest, assembled a group of authors to read selections from challenged and banned books at the Req Room on Monroe Street.
She says what might offend one person could be the book that keeps kids from feeling isolated because they can see themselves in the story.
“I think it’s important for us to know other people’s perspectives because it just make us a more empathetic society," Gage says. "And I think that’s one of the things we’ve lost, is we have lost the ability to have empathy. And that is going to be our undoing, if we don’t have empathy.”
She also points to ongoing legal battles over challenged books.
“We who are not lawyers need to not shut up, because it’s when we shut up and we go silent that they just take that as acceptance," she says. "And I am not going to accept. I’m going to insist.”
According to PEN America, of the most commonly banned books in the 2023-2024 school year, 44 percent featured people and characters of color and 39 percent featured LGBTQ+ people and characters. And Florida had the most banned and challenged books in the country for the 2023-2024 school year -- 4,561.
