JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights recently dismissed 11 complaints related to book bans, referring to them as a “hoax.” This decision comes less than a week into President Donald Trump’s second term, during which his administration rolled back measures implemented by former President Joe Biden to address book banning.
The issue of school districts pulling books off shelves has been ongoing for years, with Florida leading the nation in book bans.
Local reactions to the department’s stance are mixed. Some parent groups are pleased with the decision, while others express concern over the characterization of book bans as a hoax.
Brian Covey, a former permanent substitute at Mandarin High School, shared his perspective. He emphasized the importance of access to books for personal growth.
“I had enough books in my life that made a special mark on my being and my growth as a human so for me, it’s important for especially my kids, to be able to have access to their curiosities,” he said. “I always review what they read. We talk about difficult topics and things like that.”
Covey was fired in 2023 after posting a video of empty bookshelves in the school’s library. He shared that he was fired the day after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis visited Jacksonville where he referred to book bans as a hoax.
Now, with the Department of Education echoing this sentiment, Covey finds the timing of the dismissal of complaints during Trump’s second term noteworthy.
“They essentially take the responsibility of determining age appropriateness of books and taking it out of the hands of educators and putting it into not only just parents but individual citizens, calling its parent parental rights,” he said.
Covey feels like calling book bans a hoax is disconnected from reality, recalling what happened in Duval County. He says there were dozens of titles removed from the shelves.
“That included Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut,” he said. “These are books that I read growing up in school and studied. So it’s not just restricted to books being taught in the classroom. They’re going after secondary books that are age-appropriate, that are in the library. So they’re pulling off books just based off citizens' complaints from the libraries.”
In response to the Department of Education’s decision, Moms For Liberty Duval provided a statement:
Moms for Liberty-Duval applauds the return of sanity within the Department of Education. We appreciate that the federal government now acknowledges that claims of book bans were nothing but a political hoax designed to fearmonger. Parents who have legitimate concerns about what we’re exposing children to using our tax dollars within the contested space of public education have every right to speak up without being called book banners.
Please refer to our article published in Florida’s Voice for more local context: https://flvoicenews.com/parents-desantis-opinion/
Now it’s time to focus on the crisis in public education by turning our attention away from political kabuki theater and toward America’s plummeting literacy and math scores. Our students and Republic deserve better.
Moms For Liberty Duval
The state of Florida compiles a list of books removed or discontinued from school districts, with about 700 titles from the last school year. Despite this, the state continues to assert that book bans are a hoax.