Florida Book Bans Are Lower This Year Compared to 2023 — Why Is a Mystery

Attempts to censor books in the state of Florida, which has seen one of the highest rates of attempted book bans in the country over the past few years, have gone down drastically, the American Library Association (ALA) recently reported.

The reason why challenges to book titles have decreased is not readily known. And the ALA says resistance to book bans is still needed.

From January to August of 2023, around 852 books were challenged in the state, according to the organization’s records. In that same time period corresponding to this year, only 80 titles have been challenged.

The ALA warns that its numbers aren’t complete — they are based on media reports of challenges, as no statewide database of challenges to book titles exists.

Some possibilities for why attempts to ban books have decreased could include any of the following reasons, or a combination of them:

• Florida residents may have tired of trying to ban books, so have stopped pushing bans as much as they have over the past few years;
• Candidates for school board positions across the state sponsored by Moms for Liberty, a group that organizes book ban drives across the country, have lost many of their elections, and may recognize that book bans are unpopular;
• It’s possible that, with so many challenges in the past (and bans accepted by schools) there were limited choices for proponents of book bans to go after next;
• Or, opponents of book bans have been successful at challenging the bans to such a degree that people in favor of censorship have been discouraged from trying to ban more titles.

Despite the lower number of titles challenged this year, some classic books — many of them featuring people of color, LGBTQ themes or issues relevant to reproductive rights — have continued to face scrutiny. They include Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Stephen Chbosky’s “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” and titles by Judy Blume and Kurt Vonnegut. Some past bans in the state have targeted other classics, including “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank, which depicts the life of a young Jewish girl living in Nazi Germany during World War II and the Holocaust.

Book bans have been challenged by organized community members who have urged, sometimes successfully, their school boards to reject the attempted bans. Other communities have established book clubs, many of which have been formed by students themselves, that aim to promote banned titles.

While book bans have decreased in the state, the movement against censorship is “an ongoing fight,” Deborah Caldwell-Stone, Director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, told Florida Politics. Across the U.S. overall, 1,128 titles have faced challenges from parents and conservative groups who argue that they should be banned from classrooms or school libraries.

In August, book publishers, authors and parents sued Florida over the 2021 law that made it much easier for school districts to implement book bans across the state. Florida officials claimed the suit was nothing more than a “stunt,” alleging that there “are no banned books in Florida,” and that any titles that are restricted simply include “sexually explicit material.”

But those who have filed the lawsuit, including book publishers Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster, say the law is an unfair restriction of First Amendment speech rights. Parents involved in the lawsuit also say the state is understating the significance and breadth of the book bans.

“We’re not talking about Playboy magazine, you know, we’re talking about Anna Karenina and War and Peace,” said Judi Hayes, a Florida mother who is part of the suit.