100 signatures reached
To: Van Ayers, Superintendent of Hillsborough County Public Schools, and Hillsborough County School Board Members
Tell Hillsborough County Schools Superintendent: Transparency Now in Book Reviews
I'm writing as a concerned Floridian in Hillsborough County. Our school libraries exist to serve the diverse needs and interests of our public school students—not to reflect the speech of elected officials. Taxpayer funds support libraries so that students can access a broad range of ideas, not just state-approved content. I firmly disagree with the state's position that our school and public libraries are government speech and that we as citizens are not harmed when the state steps in to demand the removal of library materials. I am further disturbed by your action to pull hundreds of titles from our school library shelves for a review process that lacks transparency and community participation. The voters are watching and you are accountable to us.
The First Amendment guarantees all citizens, including students, the right to access ideas. It’s deeply troubling that the state is overriding the decisions of local communities by issuing removal orders via letters written by two appointed individuals—the Commissioner and the Attorney General—who were not chosen by Hillsborough voters. Until now, Hillsborough has followed a transparent, community-based process for reviewing challenged books. That process respected local community standards and involved impacted parents in the review of these materials. Yet, these outside officials unilaterally disregarded it, undermining the community and especially the majority of Hillsborough County Public Schools parents that have not put limits on their children's reading. Now, as a result of these letters, Hillsborough has removed student access to over 600 unique titles while they await review, and other districts have been scared into removing titles named in these letters from their collections as well. While the state still claims that there are no statewide bans on specific titles, the orders made in these letters by state officials are exactly that.
I urge you to respect local control and uphold the rights of our students and families. Do not allow state pressure to insidiously infringe on the rights of readers through soft censorship. Defend a fair, thorough, public review process that includes community input. Local communities should drive these decisions—not unelected bureaucrats. Our school libraries must remain places of learning, freedom, and community—not censorship.
Why is this important?
State leaders have threatened our superintendent with legal action if he does not remove books they deem inappropriate from our schools. (See: Hillsborough County schools remove books after state threatens legal action | WFLA) In addition to those specifically mentioned by the state, he has pulled hundreds of titles from school library bookshelves in Hillsborough for review, using lists of books challenged in other counties (even if those books were ultimately returned to the shelves). Up until now, whenever a book was challenged, Hillsborough used a very transparent and thorough review process that included teacher, parent, student and community input. Now, however, with hundreds of titles removed, no community input is being sought, and reviews are happening in the dark. We, the community, are not being given a say in a matter involving public schools, and parents and students most effected have no opportunity to give input on whether or not titles should stay on school library shelves. (These books are self-selected reading and are not part of school curriculums.) These actions by the state and the superintendent do not respect the rights of Hillsborough parents.