Brevard schools motion to permanently remove challenged books fails
VIERA, Fla. – The conservative-leaning Brevard County School Board rejected a motion to permanently remove some challenged books during a meeting on Tuesday.
Newly elected Brevard School Board Vice Chair Gene Trent made a motion to accept the state’s list of removed/discontinued books for 2022-2023, and remove them from the district’s school libraries.
The exception to Trent’s motion was books that are currently part of an AP curriculum.
Additionally, Trent’s motion included that if the books are on the state’s list, but not currently in Brevard’s school libraries, they would be added to a “do not purchase” list.
The issue was not on the agenda for the meeting. Trent handed out the list of around 300 books to board members, which was released to the public by the Florida Department of Education in August.
The new vice chair cited concerns over how long it was taking the Brevard book review committee to go through the list of challenged books, and said staff told him they would “probably go through 15 to 19 books per year – so it would go a little bit slow.”
The Brevard school district has a review committee which was previously put on pause by the board during a June 27 meeting. The board decided to put the committee on pause until a new policy was approved.
Trent explained the state has produced a list of books and the materials have already gone through an informal and formal process.
“Over the last few months, we’ve had some speakers from the public come up and express concern about our book review material review committee – that the lack of meeting – the dragging of feet […] We hear you and we need to streamline some things, in my opinion,” Trent explained.
“Timing may not be perfect, but there’s never a wrong time to do the right thing, and we need to get going,” Trent said.
Board member Matt Susin offered an amendment to only remove books on the state’s list that have been formally challenged in Brevard public schools.
Susin said the process is “taking so long to go through,” and believed this motion would “speed it up” and noted that the public has had an opportunity to speak on the books on the list.
The former chair said he has done a “deep dive” through books and there is “some pretty repulsive stuff.”
Florida’s Voice confirmed Susin’s claim, uncovering “explicit” excerpts in the majority of the books on the formal reconsideration list. The full list can be found further down.
23 of 31 books currently under review for formal reconsideration are found on the state’s list.
The amendment passed 4-1 with board member Jennifer Jenkins voting against. However, after discussion, the board voted 2-3 and the amended motion failed.
If Susin’s amended motion passed, almost 75% of the books on the formal reconsideration list would have stayed off shelves.
Multiple board members voiced concerns with the motion. Jenkins, Campbell, and Wright voted against the amended motion.
During discussion, board member Kayte Campbell she said she wants to continue to go through their own review process and “didn’t want to give that authority away.”
“I don’t want to do what Clay [County] is doing, I don’t want to do what Martin [County] is doing, I want to do what Brevard is doing, we’re actually voting on the policy that’s revised tonight, and we’ve worked really hard on it,” Campbell said.
Campbell said part of the delay was from the board “changing this policy several times this year.”
Wright, who was elected as the new chair earlier in the meeting, said the “reality of what we’re going to see happen is, that everyone’s going to come forward and read the books” at the board meeting.
According to HB 1069, parents “shall have the right to read passages from any material that is subject to an objection,” and if a board member stops them, the book is “discontinued.”
Other school districts have seen parents taking advantage of this in recent months. In August, the school board previously debated if they should change their public speaking policy due to this controversy, but decided to keep it as-is.
Wright said she is “partly okay with that” because she thinks “the community needs to fully understand what is in these books.”
The board member said she “tends to agree” with the process in place and said if the community wants to “circumvent” the board, they can.
“But I can’t agree with this whole list, there’s no way […] We need to go back to policymaking on this. I think we’re gonna have to touch this thing probably every six months, maybe every 60 days with this policy,” Wright explained.
According to the previous Brevard Public Schools policy, the District Material Review Committee was formed to review the challenged materials. The District Material Review Committee included the District library media resource/content teacher and parents or community members preselected by each board member.
The school district’s website currently has a list of 31 books pending decision. The books listed have been removed from circulation pending the outcome of review by the committee committee.
Florida’s Voice looked into the 23 books that are found on the state’s list, all of which contain “explicit” passages, as reported by BookLooks.
Here’s a sample of the explicit excerpts from those books:
Damsel by E.K. Arnold – Pending
“But when Emory tugged up at the hem of Ama’s shift, bunching the fabric at her waist and running his hand first across the downy nest of hair between her legs and then pushing his fingers inside of her, opening her in a way she had not know she could be opened, Sorrow growled once more.”
Forever by J Blume – Pending
“We lay down on our rug and after a while, when Michael reached under my skirt I didn’t stop him, not then and not when his hand was inside my underpants.”
Red Hood by E Arnold – Pending
“You push until you’re knuckle-deep in your own body, the first time you’ve touched yourself like this- though you have rubbed your clitoris and touched the outside, you’ve never put your fingers inside, somehow feeling like it was not right, like it would be trespassing.”
This One Summer by M. Tamaki – Pending
“One of the three girls says, “BLOW JOB. Like they don’t know what a blow job is.” The next image depicts bushes with a “shout” bubble which reads, “It’s ORAL SEX kids!” The next image depicts the two young girls. One of them is reading a DVD in her hand as she says, “OH MY GOD. They TOTALLY weren’t expecting us to rent this, right? It’s like X-rated!” The other girl says, “Hello? That’s PORN.”
The Haters by J Andrews – Pending
“It was definitely my boner…no one was awake to stare in disgust at the lurchy jailbreak of my sleep boner. […] still had the boner, masturbated in a brisk businesslike manner into the sink with the hotel conditioner.”
The Nowhere Girls by A Reed – Pending
“If I included every blow job and hand job, I’d be here for days […] Late-thirties MILF. ..definitely the oldest I’ve ever fucked. Did it doggie style in her basement while her kid played video games upstairs.”
A Court of Silver Flames by S. Maas – Pending
“Nesta blocked out the memory of his head between her thighs, his tongue at her entrance,
sliding into her.”
Breathless by J Niven – Pending
“Now he’s opening the condom packet. Now he’s putting the condom on. My head is taking over, and I just want it to shut the hell up and let my body be in charge. Now you can feel him. Now he’s putting the condom in. There’s the surprise of him inside me, even though I’m expecting it.”
Other pending titles with explicit excerpts include: Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo, A Court of Thorns and Roses by S. Maas, A Court of Wings and Ruin by S. Maas- Pending, A Court of Frost and Starlight by S. Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury by S. Maas, Tilt by E. Hopkins, Tricks by E. Hopkins, Sold by P. McCormick, Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres, People Kill People by Ellen Hopkins, Living Dead Girls by Elizabeth Scott, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, and All Boys Aren’t Blue by George Johnson.
Eight books, which were not on the state’s list, would have still been reviewed by the committee if the motion would have been adopted, as listed below:
Not my Problem by C Smyth, Infandous by E Arnold, The Infinite Moment of Us by L Myracle, Beautiful by Amy Reed, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, House of Sky and Breath by Sarah Maas, Bible Stories for Little Angels by Sarah J. Dodd, The Action Bible God’s Redemptive Story by Sergio Cariello.
Also during Tuesday’s meeting, a new policy was approved which had to be revised to align the district with HB 1069 which was passed in May.
Brevard County Moms for America expressed disappointment in the vote and said the move “could have provided some relief.”
“As parents continue to be targeted by opposition, who relentlessly attack their businesses, target their minor children, wake up to slashed car tires, are doxxed on facebook, twitter and tiktok, this motion could have provided some relief,” the post said.
“It is a shame that they are not willing to use the tools Governor Ron DeSantis provided them.”
