The Orlando Sentinel published a two-page print spread Thursday listing 673 books that have been removed from classrooms in Orange County in 2023 due to fears they violate the state’s new laws banning “sexual conduct” from public schools.
Teachers with any of the 673 books on their classroom shelves have been instructed by the school district to remove them, the newspaper said, also noting that the Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) staff will review the list of rejected books once again, so it’s possible the books will eventually be returned to the classroom. The district began compiling the list over the summer.
The list stems from two Florida laws signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis ®, who is also running for president. They require media specialists to review books in libraries and classrooms, and to exclude books that include sexually lewd material or pornography. The legislation also aims to give parents greater ability to raise objections to their children’s education.
My hot take here is that Brave New World shouldn’t be read by high schoolers because it’s too complex for most high schoolers.
The book is most definitely not about how “bread and circuses” distract people from an encroaching dystopian hellstate and the number of grown-ass adults I see parroting that is too damn high. See the other comment to your post.
It’s instead about how a lack of agency from ongoing institutions already paves the way for dystopian hellstates, and the industrialization of that loss of agency is the core concept discussed in the first chapter. That’s why they just ship the main character off to an island with the other people who have figured things out - the dystopia is such that the machine breaks immediately if anyone questions it, so they just let those people go live how they wish.
It shouldn’t be banned though, because no books should ever be banned.
That’s an even dumber reason to ban that book.
Right, no argument there whatsoever. Banning any book is dumb, full stop. But it is indeed a personal annoyance of mine.