Poet speaks up after Miami-Dade school bars elementary students from reading her poem
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A nationally known poet said Tuesday she is “gutted” after learning that a school in Miami-Dade barred elementary school children from reading her poem and three other library titles following the complaint of a parent.
Amanda Gorman — the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history — recited the poem, “The Hill We Climb,” at the inauguration of President Joe Biden on Jan. 20, 2021. Gorman, now 25 and a Harvard graduate, is an award-winning writer based in Los Angeles.
“Book bans aren’t new,” said Gorman, in a statement shared on Twitter. “Often all it takes to remove these works from our libraries and schools is a single objection.”
Gorman, a Black woman, added: “Most of the forbidden works are by authors who have struggled for generations to get on the bookshelves. The majority of these censored works are by queer and non-white voices.”
READ MORE: A Miami-Dade school flagged her poem. The county’s mayor invited her to read it
Her poem celebrates the United States not as a perfect union, but as an unfinished nation that yearns for equity and inclusion.
An excerpt of the poem reads:
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken,
but simply unfinished.
On Monday, the Miami Herald reported that a review committee at Bob Graham Education Center in Miami Lakes, a Miami-Dade K-8 public school, determined that the poem and three other titles, “The ABCs of Black History,” “Cuban Kids” and “Love to Langston,” were “better suited” for middle school students and would be shelved in the middle school section of the media center.
READ MORE: Miami-Dade K-8 bars elementary students from 4 library titles following parent complaint
One book, “Countries in the News: Cuba,” would remain available for all students in the media center.
The school committee — comprised of three teachers, a library media specialist, a guidance counselor and the school’s principal, among others — took up the issue after a parent of two students at the school, Daily Salinas, objected to the books, saying they included references of critical race theory, “indirect hate messages,” gender ideology and indoctrination, according to records obtained by the Florida Freedom to Read Project and shared with the Miami Herald.
Tuesday night, Miami-Dade County Schools argued “no literature had been banned or removed.” Staff said books were shelved in the middle school section of the media center and remain available there.
“I wrote ‘The Hill We Climb’ so all young people could see themselves in a historical moment,” Gorman said. “Robbing children of the chance to find their voices in literature is a violation of their right to free thought and free speech.”
In a White House press briefing Wednesday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre echoed that sentiment:. “As Ms. Gorman said herself, the poem, ‘The Hill We Climb,’ was written so that all young people would see themselves in a historical moment. And the president and his administration certainly stand with her.
“Banning books is censorship,“ she added. “Period. That’s what that is. When you ban a book, you are censoring.”
Gorman’s publisher, Penguin Random House, and PEN America, a nonprofit that has been tracking book bans and advocates for literary freedoms, last week sued the Escambia County School District in North Florida and its School Board, contending they violated the First Amendment in removing 10 books from school library shelves. Among the books removed: “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky, “The Nowhere Girls” by Amy Reed and “Lucky” by Alice Sebold.
“Together, this is a hill we won’t just climb, but a hill we will conquer,” Gorman said.
— Amanda Gorman (@TheAmandaGorman) May 23, 2023
