The Miami Herald, which was first to report the removal of Gorman’s poem, named the parent who had brought the complaint as Daily Salinas, who has two students at Bob Graham. The most recent legislation, enacted earlier this month, requires schools to remove books immediately based on a complaint from a single parent.Īccording to PEN America, 565 books were banned in Florida schools in the 2021-22 school year. “Robbing children of the chance to find their voices in literature is a violation of their right to free thought and free speech,” Gorman said.īook bans have surged in Florida in the wake of a series of laws signed by the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, who is poised to launch a presidential campaign. The poet invited supporters to donate to the writer’s group PEN America, which she said had joined her publisher, Penguin Random House, to issue a lawsuit challenging book restrictions in Florida. “So they ban my book from young readers, confuse me with Oprah, fail to specify what parts of my poetry they object to, refuse to read any reviews, and offer no alternatives … Unnecessary book bans like these are on the rise, and we must fight back,” she said. Gorman hit back in a lengthy social media post.
In the complaint, the parent mistakenly listed Oprah Winfrey as the author of The Hill We Climb, and said she objected to the poem because it was “not educational and have indirectly hate messages”. The poem was one of five books challenged by a parent of children at the school, including The ABCs of Black History and books on Cuba. Gorman, 25, said she was “gutted” to learn that a complaint from a single parent led to her inaugural poem being banned from Bob Graham education center in Miami Lakes.
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