Commentary: Trump Administration Takes DeSantis Book Ban Playbook Nationwide

Within Florida's Department of Education, the phrase "parental rights" has been used as a "virtuous" slogan, repeated so often that listeners forget to ask: Whose rights? Which parents?

Florida has rewritten the rules of public education, not in the interest of empowering all families, but to serve a highly politicized agenda that enables only a few voices to dictate what the rest of the state's schoolchildren can read, say, learn, and teach. A new joint report from PEN America and the Florida Freedom to Read Project, "The Blueprint State: Lessons from Parents Left Behind by 'Parental Rights' Policies in Florida," illuminates precisely how these policies have reshaped education and how this model is at risk of being applied nationwide.

The implications are frightening.

Under the banner of serving "parental rights," censorious laws like HB 1069 allow any parent, or in some cases, any resident, to file a complaint with their local school district about a book containing so-called sexual conduct, triggering its immediate removal from school shelves until the complaint is resolved. No due process. No evidence required. And while these school district review processes drag on for weeks, months, and even years, students lose access, and parents who want their children to read widely have no way to opt back in.
Nothing about this policy is serving Florida's students, let alone their parents.

Another law, HB 1467, requires the Florida Department of Education to annually publish a list of every book title removed in any district. This list, billed as informational, has evolved into an unofficial mandate to nudge other districts to follow suit, regardless of whether the titles have ever been challenged locally. In Seminole, for example, over 140 titles were permanently removed. Not initiated by local objections, but by the state list. In Hillsborough, the school district removed over 600 titles from shelves for review after pressure from the state attorney general and education commissioner. No community input or transparency. It is nothing more than educational erasure, outsourced from one district to another.

And what do actual Florida parents think? Our new report makes this clear. One hundred percent of all families in 19 districts and at least 99 percent in 13 more chose to grant their children full access to their school libraries. But those choices are now meaningless. The law allows one objector to erase the preferences of thousands.

The report also details how other state-sponsored laws, such as HB 1467, have compelled educators to remain silent. The state-mandated training required by the bill states that teachers and librarians must now "err on the side of caution," while the state's Principles of Professional Conduct dangle the threat of decertification for those who misstep.

The result? A culture where self-censorship is the default and where the state, not parents, makes the final call on what is "appropriate."

This regime of "parental rights" in Florida is a disguise for policies that instead elevate a vocal minority to push censorship while sidelining the vast majority of families who trust teachers and school librarians and believe their children are capable of facing complexity.

It's Bad, It's Nationwide

Now, the Florida model is being pitched nationally by the current federal administration, which is echoing the very tactics Florida has been living under since 2021, dismissing book bans as hoaxes and cutting funding for programs that address race and other topics or teach complex texts.

Teachers should be trusted to teach, and all parents should be empowered to guide their children. Instead, Florida has built a machine for erasure. What it protects is not children, but the viewpoints of a particular group. And now that blueprint is being handed to the nation.

Fear and censorship are the actual currency of this movement. It is what justifies the sudden scrubbing of civil rights leaders from textbooks and the shuttering of classroom libraries. It is what leads state officials to suggest that enslaved people "developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit." It is what prompts school administrators to remove books to avoid losing their credentials preemptively. It is what allows the state to say that it is protecting children, even as it narrows their worldview.

Don't mistake this for parental rights. It's selective empowerment, dressed up in the language of freedom.

Editor's note: William Johnson is the director of PEN America Florida. Stephana Ferrell is a co-director of the Florida Freedom to Read Project. The views expressed in the above commentary are solely those of the writer(s). New Times occasionally shares essays, commentaries, and other opinion articles submitted to the editor. Want to submit your own? Email it to [email protected], where you can also comment on this piece.