Banned Books by the State: Utah and Florida
This year, 2024, has become notable for not only providing us a view of the top 10 banned books and other statistics for all of 2023 but also being a year in which there have been more aggressive statewide efforts to ban books in public educational institutions. Let’s look at two recent occasions of books banned by the state in Utah and Florida, as well as a novel that has frequently appeared on banned and challenged books lists for over fifty-four years for some of the same reasons.
In the spring of 2024, the State of Utah banned 13 popular books from public school libraries, under a new law that requires books to be removed carte blanche if three or more public schools in the state move for them to be banned. On March 18, 2024, the “Sensitive Materials Review Amendment” (H.B. 29) was signed by Utah Governor Spencer Cox with the stated purpose of requiring schools to “identify and remove pornographic or illicit material” from public school libraries. It took effect on July 1, 2024 after which, in August 2024, a list of 13 books was released by Utah’s State Board of Education instructing all state public schools to remove them from their libraries because they were identified as “objective sensitive materials.”
In August of 2024, photographs went viral of a dumpster full of discarded library books at a Florida state college, New College of Florida, in Sarasota. The college received criticism for rebuffing attempts by students and other community members to rescue the books before they could be sent to the landfill. The culling also coincided with the removal of books from the college’s Gender and Diversity Center, which is being closed as part of an ongoing effort by the Board of Trustees and Governor Ron DeSantis to “eliminate indoctrination and re-focus higher education on its classical mission.” The Dean of the Library, Shannon Hausinger, was subsequently fired for reasons contested by her lawyer who says the Dean “should not be made into a ‘scapegoat’.”
This year’s Top Ten banned books include one that appears nearly annually: The Bluest Eye (1970) by Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison. The novel takes place in Morrison's hometown, Lorain, Ohio, and tells the story of a young African American girl who grew up following the Great Depression. Set in 1941, the story is about how she is consistently regarded as "ugly" due to her mannerisms and dark skin. As a result, she develops an inferiority complex, which fuels her desire for the blue eyes she equates with "whiteness.” As with many of the books on this year’s top ten list of banned books, it explores issues such as gender roles, whiteness and beauty standards, and internalized racism. Objections to the novel include that it depicts rape and incest, that it is sexually explicit, and that it includes EDI (equity, diversity, inclusion) content.
Please visit our Banned Books Week research guide for additional information and resources.
Written by: Patricia Giles, Reference and Instruction Librarian; Emily Warfield, IL Scholar, MLIS ‘25; and Joel Carpenter, IL Scholar, MLIS ‘26