A public college in Florida tossed hundreds of books in the trash this week, with many of the discarded titles appearing to be related to LGBTQ issues, race and women’s rights.
Photos and videos posted to social media by a reporter for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune show the books in at least one dumpster and cardboard boxes in parking lots at the New College of Florida.
The book titles that are visible in the photos include “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 defended its actions in discarding the books, describing it as part of “longstanding annual procedures.”
“The images seen online of a dumpster of library materials is related to the standard weeding process,” the college said in a statement. “Chapter 273 of Florida statutes precludes New College from selling, donating or transferring these materials, which were purchased with state funds. Deselected materials are discarded, through a recycling process when possible.”
The public college also confirmed that it had discarded books associated with its discontinued gender studies program. New College announced last year that it was dropping the program, several months after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed six new members to the college’s board of trustees with the reported aim of changing the college’s culture. In May of last year, at a ceremony held at New College, DeSantis signed a bill into law that banned public universities and colleges in Florida from using state or federal funding for diversity programs.
“Separate from the New College library weeding its collection, a number of books associated with the discontinued Gender Studies program were removed from a room in Hamilton Center that is being repurposed,” the statement added.
Bacardi Jackson, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, denounced the disposal of the books in a lengthy and sharp statement 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,” Jackson wrote. “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 giving students the opportunity to preserve them, should outrage every Floridian and every American who values democracy and free thought.”
Books — and particularly titles on LGBTQ people, race and women — have become a focal point in Florida’s yearslong culture war. As the state has enacted laws to limit the teaching of sexual orientation, gender identity and critical race theory in its public schools in the last couple of years, some schools have banned or removed books with LGBTQ, Black or female characters from their libraries in an effort to comply with the new laws.
A recent study by PEN America on the 2022-23 school year found that book bans were most prevalent in Florida, Missouri, South Carolina, Texas and Utah and that 56% of the books targeted were either about race or LGBTQ issues, or featured characters of color or queer characters.
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