Ron DeSantis Florida Book Ban

Overview

Ron DeSantis Florida Book Ban relates to the contentious removal of different books from classrooms in the state of Florida as part of the enforcement of the "K-12 Education" bill signed by Governor Ron DeSantis in March 2022. In early 2023, the act and its enforcement became a widespread controversy online and in the media as teachers and classrooms were reportedly emptied out of their books due to the wording of the law, culminating in a media event with DeSantis in which explicit material was shown on a live broadcast.

Background

On March 25th, 2022, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the K-12 Education act, which handled the selection and dissemination of material within school and classroom libraries. This act went into effect on July 1st, 2022, with a lot of stipulations and rules for classroom education that would not be explored until the following school year began in August. With the law being known before its signing, videos and media reports about it and the potential consequences were already beginning to circulate before it's official signing, with the YouTube channel ABC Action News^[1] having one of the first accounts of the law uploaded on March 3rd, 2022 (shown below).

Developments

In January 2023, it was then announced by the Florida Department of Education that books would not be allowed in Florida classrooms unless they were first checked against a list of approved books that would be handed down by the governing body later in the year. This created somewhat of a panic as it was widely reported as a "Book Ban" with many teachers deciding to empty out their class libraries in fear of being in violation of the law and banned book list, as reported by News4JAX^[2] on January 27th, 2023 (shown below).

On March 8th, 2023, Governor DeSantis held a press conference with members of the media in which it was warned ahead of time that they would be viewing explicit material that was pulled directly from books found in the classrooms of several schools within different Florida counties. This conference started with a video, which was unable to be played during the news broadcast due to its content, before an hour of DeSantis and other speakers talking about the law and their aim for the education of Florida.

Following the conference, DeSantis^[3] Tweeted a "Myths vs. Facts" chart going over the finer points touched on in the conference (shown below), adding the caption "It is important to expose the 'book ban' hoax about Florida schools."

Online Reactions

After the announcement by the Florida Department of Education in late January 2023, discourse emerged online surrounding the act as some found it controversial. For example, on February 17th, 2023, TikToker^[4] tizzyent posted a video with the caption "What Ron Desantis is doing to teachers in FL" that covered the reaction of Florida teacher and TikToker bteaches3. The TikTok received over 132,000 likes and 11,000 comments in roughly three weeks (seen below).

The press conference on March 8th, 2023, also sparked renewed discussions about the act and book ban around social media. For example, TikToker^[5] jaimastorm uploaded a video that same day with the on-screen text "IDEALOGICAL INDOCTRINATION" overlaid on DeSantis speaking, receiving over 40 likes and 10 comments in 20 hours (seen below).

Search Interest

External References