EDITORIAL: It’s easy to understand, but hard to condone, Orange’s book-ban backdown

It’s not hard to understand. The Orange County School District doesn’t want to play Gov. Ron DeSantis’ game of book-ban chicken. Not when it means that teachers or librarians could find themselves stripped of their professional certification or hauled off in handcuffs for offending the sensibilities of a handful of self-righteous activists.

So district administrators made the safe sacrifice, one that’s been echoed in other counties: Get rid of books that were likely to spark a challenge, regardless of their often-unquestioned literary merit. Orange County’s 673-book list — which the Sentinel published in full earlier this month — was clearly influenced by books that have been challenged in other communities. They include books for very young readers as well as books that are age-appropriate and worthy of study by high-school-age students. Some of them may eventually be allowed back on library shelves and in teachers’ classrooms. Many will not, until Florida breaks the grip of anti-freedom activists who have taken it upon themselves to dictate what books should be made available, or withheld, from other people’s children.

Let that day come soon. Unfortunately, decisions like Orange County’s only prolong it. That puts local school officials in the wrong.

Orange school district pulls 673 books from teachers’ classroom shelves

Not just about books

Florida’s current war on intellectual freedom isn’t just anti-book, though you can see flames of literary bonfires glinting the eyes of its shock troops, the deceptively named “Moms for Liberty.” It’s anti-teacher and pro-fear, a smugly sadistic game that forces districts to predict which books are most likely to provoke the banners’ collective ire and scramble to get them off classroom shelves.

The laws these districts are struggling to follow are designed to spawn precisely this reaction: Deliberately vague on the parameters that should be used to judge books, but harshly explicit on the penalties for letting a “wrong” book slip through the cracks and fitted with a hair trigger that allows any zealot, anywhere, to challenge any book. It’s no wonder districts overreact. In their shoes, we might do the same — though we’d expect, and deserve, the censure of more courageous souls such as Jen Cousins and Stephana Ferrell, co-founders of the Central Florida-based Freedom to Read Project.

In the long view, these activists and groups are absolutely correct. These bans will persist, even get worse, until someone carries out the punitive threats. That will spark the court battles that should shut down this cruel game of cat and mouse.

But nobody wants to be the mouse.

“Don’t blame DeSantis!”

That leaves pro-ban forces free to self-righteously disclaim any responsibility for the meritorious titles that end up on those lists.

In fact, that’s what they often lead with: “Ron DeSantis hasn’t banned any books!” they proclaim. That’s true and deceptive at the same time, because nobody is claiming that DeSantis has named any titles he personally objects to. In fact, we doubt the governor could identify the elements making the 673 books pulled in Orange County, or the hundreds of others stripped from shelves across Florida, objectionable. Some of them have been challenged for brief descriptions of sexual encounters of thought (including passages selected for the lip-smackingly lascivious pornothons staged by Moms for Liberty activists at school board meetings across the state).

Others, particularly those targeted last year, appear to have been picked because they outside the Euro-centric, heterosexual, cisgender fantasyland deemed “classical,” to include characters and cultures that many of the Moms for Liberty types castigate as “woke.” Both words are being sadly misinterpreted.

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This spell won’t be broken until districts start pushing back. No matter how sympathetic local leaders’ motives are, they should not continue to bend the knee. Their teachers, their librarians, are adults. Let them take whatever risks they are willing to take. But be prepared, if school district employees are singled out for punishment, to fight like wildcats in their defense.

Ultimately, this battle isn’t about teachers. And it’s certainly not about books. It’s about students, and their right to see firsthand that freedom is worth some risks. That the adults in their lives believe that, and are willing to put their own well-being on the line.

The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Contact us at insight@orlandosentinel.com