How They Defend the Freedom to Learn

It’s a race to the bottom in Florida, where lawmakers have sealed the state’s reputation as the country’s epicenter of discriminatory censorship in schools. Over the past few years, new policies and laws in Florida have stopped teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity, while also repressing any honest efforts to grapple with systemic racism and slavery.

Sadly, Florida is not alone. Since 2020, discriminatory educational censorship laws have spread rapidly across the United States. Conservative groups helped fuel this change by organizing a 50-state campaign, providing state lawmakers with template legislation to restrict the freedom to learn. Today, nearly half of US public school students attend schools impacted by educational censorship laws.

Many people have taken a stand against these prejudiced policies – including in Florida. There, students, parents, churches, cultural institutions, educators, and advocates work to change state laws and stop local censorship, while also developing ways to get students the information they need. Their goal: to build a brighter future for the state.

These Florida leaders stand in a long tradition of education activism. In 1870, after a new US constitutional amendment ended race-based voting restrictions, formerly enslaved people established Freedmen’s Schools, teaching literacy and civics. Ahead of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which banned discrimination in voting, Black Americans and their allies created Freedom Schools so the Black community would have the necessary information to participate in politics and improve their lives.

We hope today’s leaders fighting censorship in Florida can offer a blueprint to people across the United States to further truly free and just education. 

A then-high-school student in Palm Beach, Florida, Maxx Fenning didn’t think Florida legislators would pass the Don’t Say Gay or Trans Law. Maxx, an LGBTQ+ advocate, even texted a close friend saying the bill was too far-fetched to get enough support.

Before the vote, Maxx and his friends joined 200 people who flooded the Florida capitol building’s rotunda, chanting and waving pride flags, so legislators could hear and see their objections. Then, in March 2022, Florida’s House of Representatives passed the law with 69 lawmakers voting in favor, 47 against.

For Maxx, it was gut-wrenching to see state legislators villainize his community. It reminded him of “No Promo Homo” laws, enacted in several states in the 1990s, which prohibited the “promotion” of homosexuality or even required teachers to instruct students that same-sex activity is unacceptable and may be illegal under state law.

But Maxx had a way to push back. In 2020, he and a group of friends created PRISM, a youth-led nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to LGBTQ+ inclusive education and sexual health resources for students in South Florida. They wanted a place for LGBTQ+ youth to feel safe and affirmed. The group even created a high school ambassador program to help LGBTQ+ youth develop leadership skills to create change in their communities.

After passage of the Don’t Say Gay or Trans law, officially House Bill 1557, Maxx turned his focus to supporting LGBT high school students experiencing the worst impacts of the law as well as book bans. For the first time, PRISM felt that it had to defend against emboldened anti-LGBT hate in the state.

“We have seen books pulled from shelves. We've seen a complete silencing of LGBT history, queer voices, and queer stories in the classroom. And it has just been an immensely damaging reality for so many young people,” he said.

A few months after the law passed, the Miami Dade County School Board was set to consider a measure recognizing October as LGBT History Month. The school board had previously passed the measure unanimously, but in Florida’s political climate, it decided to revisit the topic as some board members now considered LGBT history a contentious topic.

PRISM students worked with the United Teachers of Dade, a local teachers union, to galvanize a large turnout for the October 19 board meeting. More than 100 people attended the meeting, both to support and oppose the measure. The opposition included members of the Proud Boys, a right-wing paramilitary group whose presence intimidated many community members, students said. After hours of public comment – the meeting lasted past midnight – the board rejected the measure to celebrate LGBT History Month. The students and their supporters were devastated.

The following year, October 2023, PRISM showed up at the school board meeting again. This time, the group prepared high school speakers to use their three-minute presentation time to share a piece of LGBT history. The students chose to share historical events related to educational standards set out by Florida. If the school district wouldn’t recognize LGBT History Month, the students would do it themselves.

LGBT students and families across South Florida held watch parties of the school board meeting, proud that they were publicly broadcasting LGBT history at the very place where they suffered a loss. The “School the School Board” project, as it was named, will become an annual event. Maxx saw his peers turn a moment of grief and despair on its head, creating something beautiful.

PRISM and the students have been winning improvements for their peers at the school board ever since. In March 2024, the group worked with high school students and a Miami-Dade County school board member to pass a measure that expands opportunities for students to participate in school board meetings. Maxx and PRISM are part of a movement of Florida youth-led groups, including the SEE Alliance and Youth Action Fund, who also advocate for LGBT youth.  

The Parents

Lissette Fernandez never planned on becoming an activist. That was, until she felt her children’s future was at stake.

Born and raised in a close-knit Cuban community in Miami, Lissette felt her journey was like that of many parents. She simply wanted a good education for her two elementary-aged children.

She was stunned when, in May 2023, she learned that her children’s school district planned to remove books from school libraries including the “ABCs of Black History,” a children’s book; “The Hill We Climb," a poetry book by Amanda Gorman, the country’s first National Youth Poet Laureate; "Love to Langston,” a book about the African American poet Langston Hughes; and “Cuban Kids,” a photobook about Cuban culture and history. These books were being banned because a Florida resident had filed a book challenge, arguing that the books were not “age appropriate.” Lissette worried this trend would spread to more books and schools in the community.

“I don't want my kids to ever feel like they're not loved or they're not wanted because of who they are,” Lisette said. “So I advocate for [Black and LGBT] kids as well because I wouldn't want people to treat me like that.”

Lissette worked with her friend, Vanessa Brito, to start Moms for Libros, an advocacy organization led by parents who oppose politically motivated censorship of books and critical learning materials. The group advocates primarily at the school board level to influence the implementation of Florida laws. For example, while Florida law expanded the book challenge process, local school boards ultimately vote and decide on materials that will be removed from a school district. They hope to speak out for parents who aren’t represented by the conservative so-called “parental rights movement,” which often opposes young people’s freedom to learn. 

Lissette thinks Florida – through the Stop WOKE Act, Don’t Say Gay or Trans law, and book banning attempts – was imposing a political agenda on its public schools. “They’re trying to spread this message that it’s about parental rights, but really, it’s not about parental rights,” she said, “because I don’t have as much of a say about what goes on with my kids' education as the mom next to me who shares the [conservative] politics of the legislature.”

Moms for Libros teaches parents the logistics of advocacy at the school board: how to register for public comment, how to prepare for public speaking, and how to build relationships with school board members. The group, which works together with dozens of parent-led advocacy groups, like Florida Freedom to Read Project and the Coalition for Black Student Achievement, mobilizes its parent network to speak in favor of legislation it supports and against legislation it believes could further censorship.

Lissette says the work is difficult when it cuts into family time or puts her in the public eye beyond her comfort. She leans on her family, community of other parents, and her aspirations for her children to persevere.  

Mitchell Kaplan has been a Florida bookseller for more than 42 years. When he learned about the rise in book bans across the state, there was no question that the independent bookstore he founded, Books & Books, would find a way to support authors and readers.

“First Amendment issues and freedom to read issues were always extremely important to us as booksellers because, you know, the free flow of ideas is the bedrock of what a democracy actually is,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell was reminded of moments in the past when books had been challenged. Many times in the late 20th century, groups objected to books – particularly those with LGBT themes and characters. The difference, though, was that previous moves were largely driven by extreme groups. Today’s efforts are also bolstered by government policies such as Florida’s House Bill 1069, which expands the category of books eligible for removal from public schools. 

Click to expand Image

Books & Books has a number of locations, but Mitchell and his team primarily operate out of the original bookstore, located in Coral Gables, Florida. They began using the tools all booksellers have to take on these issues. He hosted speaking events featuring authors of books that had been challenged. The bookstore gave away thousands of banned books to local families. Local organizers met at Books & Books to plan rallies and other advocacy activities. Mitchell wrote to other book store owners across the country to share the ways they could fight back against censorship in schools.

Cultural institutions are what Mitchell and others call “third places,” or favorite neighborhood gathering spots. “When we opened so many years ago, the idea was that we would be in the grand tradition of the great third place – after work, after home,” he said. “You go to a bookstore, record store, or beauty parlor, or barber shop. You go where people congregate. And that's always been something in my mind that we wanted to do, something to become a community center.”

These spaces are critical in a time of increasing polarization, he said. Democracy requires the free flow of diverse ideas, Mitchell said. And these ideas are often transmitted through books. 

Dr. Marvin Dunn worries about the cost of forgetting. He first learned about racial terror lynchings in Florida from his father, a Black man who had lived through them. Marvin researched the topic, interviewing people like his father to preserve their stories. Doing these interviews with family members and descendants of victims, as well as perpetrators of racial violence, Marvin learned that these events do not remain in the past. “Even though some of these events happened decades ago, that pain gets carried forward,” he said. 

The names of many Black victims of racial terror have been erased or forgotten, Marvin said, and he wonders if in a few decades, names like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor might also be forgotten.

Marvin Dunn, who has a PhD in psychology, is a former history professor at Florida International University and a founder of the Miami Center for Racial Justice, which works to protect Black history in Florida. The group began offering “Teach the Truth” tours, four-day tours open to the public that highlight the forgotten parts of Florida’s Black history. Through the tours, people learn about the Black Seminoles, Black people who escaped slavery and, together with Native American Seminole tribes in Florida, established maroon colonies. They learn about the 1923 Rosewood Massacre, when a mob of nearly 200 white people lynched more than 30 Black men, women, and children, and burned their town to the ground. People on the tours will talk about forgotten activists such as Harry and Harriette Moore, a Black couple killed in 1953 for their advocacy for voting rights in Florida.

Click to expand Image

In the wake of Florida’s recent laws, the Teach the Truth tours have become incredibly popular, Marvin said. Entire families load onto the buses for a weekend trip to historical sites across the state. Teachers have joined the trips to increase their ability to teach students about these topics. Marvin Dunns’s peers in education told him they are afraid to discuss topics that deal with institutional racism and Black people who resisted racism, an omission that Marvin worries is damaging for all children. “The state will tell you that you can teach slavery in our schools, but you can’t teach anything about the bad parts,” he said. “That’s a tremendous injury.”

Marvin rejects the idea that learning about Black history or systemic racism will make students feel guilty or uncomfortable, a line popularly used by Florida politicians to justify recent laws.

Looking forward, Marvin Dunn plans to continue preserving sites of Black Florida history and ensure students have access to his research. He’s also expanding the offerings of the Miami Center for Racial Justice by working more with public school teachers to provide classroom lectures and establishing permanent historical sites. He does this in hopes that all Florida students will learn the full truth of the past and commit to building a more righteous future.