This week, a public institution in Florida trashed hundreds of books, many of which appeared to be about LGBTQ issues, race, and women’s rights.
A reporter for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune released photos and videos on social media showing books in at least one dumpster and cardboard boxes in parking lots at New College of Florida.
The photographs show book titles such as “Cures: A Gay Man’s Odyssey,” “Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe,” “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom,” “Feminist Thought,” and “Race Music: Black Cultures From Bebop to Hip-Hop.”
New College of Florida justified its actions in dumping the books, citing “longstanding annual procedures.”
“The images seen online of a dumpster of library materials are related to the standard weeding process,” the college said in a statement. “Chapter 273 of Florida legislation prohibits New College from selling, donating, or transferring these materials, which were purchased with state cash. Deselected materials are discarded, and if possible, recycled.”
The books were disposed of as part of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ yearslong attempt to convert the modest liberal arts school, noted for its progressive student body, into a more conservative institution.
New College also stated that it had discarded literature from its terminated gender studies program. Last year, New College announced that it was discontinuing the program, several months after DeSantis appointed six new members to the college’s board of trustees with the stated goal of improving the college’s culture.
In May of last year, at a ceremony at New College, DeSantis signed legislation prohibiting Florida’s public universities and colleges from using state or federal funds for diversity programs.
“Separate from the New College library weeding its collection, some books associated with the discontinued Gender Studies program were removed from a room in Hamilton Center that is being repurposed,” according to the statement.
Bacardi Jackson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, issued a lengthy and scathing statement condemning the books’ removal on Thursday.
“These actions are nothing short of a cultural purge, reminiscent of some of history’s darkest times, where regimes sought to control thought by burning books and erasing knowledge,” says Jackson. “The fact that these books—sources of wisdom, diverse perspectives, and the narratives of marginalized communities—were discarded in the dead of night, without transparency, and without allowing students to preserve them, should outrage every Floridian and every American who values democracy and free thought.”
Books, particularly those on LGBTQ people, race, and women, have been a focal point in Florida’s decades-long culture war. As the state has enacted laws limiting the teaching of sexual orientation, gender identity, and critical race theory in public schools in recent years, some schools have banned or removed books featuring LGBTQ, Black, or female characters from their libraries to comply with the new laws.
A recent PEN America survey on the 2022-23 school year indicated that book bans were most widespread in Florida, Missouri, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah, with 56% of the works targeted being about race or LGBTQ concerns, or featuring characters of color or queer people.