Broward County Public Schools has directed all schools to remove 55 titles from their libraries, following an order from the Florida Board of Education, according to a Sun Sentinel report.
The list, circulated to principals in a July 24 memo from Fabian Cone, the district’s academic officer, includes frequently challenged works such as Forever… by Judy Blume, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson, and All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson.
“The directive states that failure to comply may result in disciplinary action,” the memo said. Broward administrators have launched a districtwide compliance plan to ensure all prohibited titles are identified, removed, and documented before the 2025–2026 school year begins.
According to officials, the removals follow discussions at a June 4 meeting of the state Board of Education, where board members told the Hillsborough County superintendent that the books in question are inappropriate for school libraries. The same list had surfaced earlier in the state Legislature during debate on a bill aimed at making it easier to ban books in schools.
Supporters of the removals — including some state leaders — argue that the targeted titles contain pornographic or sexually explicit passages unsuitable for minors. Critics contend this is part of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ broader campaign to limit student access to diverse literature and circumvent state law, which typically gives local school districts the authority to set library collections.
Broward County Public Schools serves a diverse student body, shaped by the county’s mix of cultural and ethnic backgrounds, which includes thousands of Caribbean-Americans.
Florida led the nation in book bans during the 2023–24 academic year, with 4,561 recorded instances — about 45% of all such bans nationwide — according to a November report by PEN America, a free speech advocacy group.
Other school districts, including those in Orange, Osceola, and Palm Beach counties, have already removed the same titles. A Palm Beach district spokesman confirmed, “Any of the specified materials found to be present in our school libraries have been removed.”
Courts have generally held that material with some sexual content does not meet the legal definition of pornography if, taken as a whole, it has literary or artistic value — a point advocates say is being ignored in Florida’s current wave of book removals.
