4 June 29 - July 5, 2023 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | music | cafe | culture | Night+Day | news | letters | coNteNts | Month XX–Month XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS | BAD CALL Miami-Dade school board seeks to revise its book-ban policy in the wake of “national embarrassment.” BY NAOMI FEINSTEIN I n the wake of national back- lash over a Miami Lakes school’s decision to restrict ac- cess to Amanda Gorman’s 2021 presidential inauguration poem, Miami-Dade County school board member Steve Gallon hopes to strengthen the district’s policies to ensure staff is better equipped to handle frivolous book challenges. Gallon tells New Times the challenge to Gorman’s poetry book — submitted by an ac- tivist parent who incorrectly thought Oprah Winfrey wrote the work — was “woefully de- ficient” and used vague, culture-war dog whistles to prompt the material’s removal from an elementary school library section. “I thought the national embarrassment that we faced as a district was due to a lack of com- munication at every level,” Gallon adds. “Al- though the school site carried out their duties to the best of their understanding, there was no notification to the region, district, and obvi- ously to the board. We’re going to be transpar- ent. If we follow the letter of the law, we need to review this particular process and make ad- justments to the procedures to review compli- ance and notification at every level.” Gallon says school leadership committees who review challenges need to be better trained on what qualifies as a legitimate ob- jection. He proposes a measure entitled “Re- view of Policy 2510 and Procedures for Instructional Materials Review, Challenge, and Removal,” which will be considered at today’s school board meeting. Gallon adds that if a challenge is incom- plete or severely deficient, the school should send the form back to the challenger for pos- sible resubmission consistent with the law and school board rules. Daily Salinas, an activist with ties to Moms for Liberty who is the parent of two students at Bob Graham Educational Center, petitioned for the removal of Gorman’s poetry book The Hill We Climb along with The ABCs of Black History, Cuban Kids, Countries in the News: Cuba, and Love to Langston in late March. She claimed the titles indoctrinated students about socialism, critical race theory, and gender theory. Salinas said the materials were not educa- tional and contained hate messages. In re- sponse to the complaint form’s question about whether she is aware of professional reviews of the materials, Salinas wrote, “I don’t need it.” Her complaint did not mention Gorman and incorrectly listed Oprah Winfrey as the author of The Hill We Climb. (Winfrey contributed a foreword to the print edition of the poem.) “It is one parent’s representation that these works represented indoctrination,” Gallon tells New Times. “There was no debate. There was no discourse. There was no explicit dia- logue to have the individual defend their rep- resentation of it being indoctrination.” Aside from Countries in the News: Cuba, a school review committee determined the four other books were “more appropriate for middle school students.” The books were subsequently re-shelved and moved to the middle school li- brary section. “When you use arbitrary words, such as ‘indoctrination,’ and you are erro- neous in your identification of who the author is, that tells me that, number one, the document for the challenge was defi- cient, and number two, the decision to re- spond to it... was not in comportment with the policy and statue,” Gallon argues. With Gov. Ron DeSantis at the helm, Flor- ida has become a leading state for blocking access to educational content via the passage of the Stop WOKE Act, which restricts in- struction about systemic racism in the class- room, and the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which prohibits classroom discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity. While the laws don’t ban specific book titles, they have been cited by teachers, librarians, ad- ministrators, and parents alike as the reason for books being removed from school shelves. Florida has argued in court that the “Don’t Say Gay” bill applies only to classroom mate- rials. But in practice, some county officials have readily restricted access to school li- brary books based on challenges mirroring the bill. Meanwhile, Florida requires local li- brarians to ensure “alignment to state aca- demic standards.” HB 1467, passed in 2022, laid out new pro- cedures for parents to review instructional materials and library books and vie for their removal. A recently passed law goes a step fur- ther by requiring a book to be removed if a sin- gle parent or resident claims it contains inappropriate sexual content. The latter bill forces staff to remove the book within five days of receiving the objection and to keep the book unavailable until the objection is resolved. “Obviously, pornography, profanity, and some things are divisive and openly hateful. These titles that were cited were none of those,” Gallon tells New Times. “I want to deal with the issue of what is cited as ‘age-ap- propriate.’ Are we talking content? Are we talking readability? Are we talking both?” In recent years, Salinas has actively partic- ipated in local school board protests and po- litical rallies. After the controversy over her challenge to the Gorman poem, her social media accounts were found to be spotted with debunked reposts. She apologized last month for sharing an anti-Semitic tweet, say- ing she thought she was promoting a post about the dangers of communism. “I see the word ‘communism,’ and I think it’s something about communism,” she told the Jewish Telegraph Agency. “I didn’t read the words.” More than 350 books were banned in Flor- ida school districts between July and Decem- ber 2022, according to the nonprofit PEN America. Behind Texas, Florida was the state with the second-highest number of book- banning incidents during that time frame, the group says. The removal of Gorman’s poem caused a nationwide firestorm, with public officials and Gorman herself denouncing the decision. In response to the controversy, Miami-Dade Mayor Danielle Levine Cava invited Gorman to give a poetry reading. Books & Books hosted the “Banned Book Giveaway” at Coral Gables Congregational Church with readings by poet-laureate Richard Blanco, local author Edwidge Danicat, and Black historian Marvin Dunn. Gallon says he’s confident his measure will pass, as it is co-sponsored by the remaining eight members of the school board. [email protected] Poet Amanda Gorman during the presidential inauguration at the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2021, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Erin Schaff/Getty Images | METRO | “THE NATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT THAT WE FACED AS A DISTRICT WAS DUE TO A LACK OF COMMUNICATION AT EVERY LEVEL.”
