‘The Color Purple’ Removed From Schools Under New Florida Law

Classics like 17th-century epic poem Paradise Lost and Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World are among 673 books removed from Orange County, Florida, classrooms in wake of a new state law that requires schools to remove “sexual content” from their shelves.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that some books among the hundreds of titles—including bestsellers and those previously taught in high school such as The Color Purple and Catch-22—are at least temporarily banned until district staff can give them a second review.

Orange County Public Schools began compiling its list of targeted books this summer to comply with House Bill 1069, which passed the Republican-controlled Legislature, was signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis, and is an expansion of the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

At a Dec. 12 school board meeting, the Sentinel reports, one board member said media specialists were under “great fear” because of the laws that hold them liable for classroom library titles and were thus engaging in “over censorship.”

“It’s creating this culture of fear within our media specialists and even teachers who just want to have a library in their classrooms, so kids have access,” said former elementary teacher and board member Karen Castor Dentel.