Dozens of students, parents and teachers spoke out against district-wide book bans at a protest held outside the Brevard County School Board meeting Tuesday, February 6.
Almost thirty books are currently being reviewed after being challenged in the district, including “A Court of Thorns and Roses” at last night's meeting.
Outside the meeting, students like Brevard senior Anjani Sharma voiced concerns over the proposed bans. She said book bans are detrimental to student learning.
“I know that in books these authors highlight their own lives but also lives of others that I would never be able to understand unless I read that," said Sharma.
Eastern Florida State College junior Rosalina Rodriguez said she’s upset many of the banned books feature LGBTQ+ characters and themes.
“I know definitely for me, I started out reading some books about those kinds of things and that really helped me with who I am," said Rodriguez.
After the hour-long protest, the students continued to speak out during public comment.
But at the end of the meeting the board still decided to remove the book by a vote of four to one.
Board member Matt Susin expressed his concerns over some of the sex scenes in the book along with the community’s responses to the book bans.
“One week we have a group of people that come in and yell at us, that we didn’t ban a book. And then the very next week we have a group of people that say you banned a book. And it’s just this see-saw," said Susin.
However, he said he looks forward to doing the important work of looking at books that have been challenged each meeting.
Here's a list of books being reviewed in the county.
Copyright 2024 WMFE. To see more, visit WMFE. 9(MDA4MzM1MjM1MDEzMTg5NTk0MzNmOTQ5MA004))