Florida law has schools scared to teach Shakespeare [View all]

[Cyrano]

The book banning frenzy in Florida is mind boggling. One county wants to ban "Fahrenheit 451," a masterpiece about a dystopian future in which all books are burned. Evidently, the people in that county don't see the irony. -- There is no doubt that fascism is well underway in FL and elsewhere in America.

A Ron DeSantis-backed law tightening restrictions on books in school libraries and classrooms is having a major impact in one Florida county. Orange County Public Schools have at least temporarily rejected a staggeringly long list of books as media specialists seek to remove any books that censorship-happy parents might decide to challenge once the school year starts.

-- snip --

The books on the temporarily rejected list include “A Room With a View,” “Madame Bovary,” “Paradise Lost,” “Into the Wild,” “The Fault in Our Stars,” “Catch-22,” “Brave New World,” and more. They include books that have been part of the official school curriculum.

There is hope for works that are temporarily on the rejected list while educators consider them: William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was initially rejected, then approved for grades 10 through 12 only, a status it shares with three other Shakespeare plays, the Tennessee Williams classic “A Streetcar Named Desire,” and Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood.”

-- snip --

Republicans are passing one punitive, restrictive law after another, targeting health care, education, and more. We’re seeing the results, and make no mistake, this is the world they want to build: A world where “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is off limits for younger teens and “Paradise Lost” may be banned. A world where laws are put in place that directly imply that, as one Orange County teacher told the Orlando Sentinel, “I have horrible intentions for my students.” A world where doctors are afraid to give appropriate medical care to women with pregnancy complications until they are on the brink of death. The intent is the government forcing workers to live in fear of someone getting mad about the professional decisions they make. It’s already in action in states like Florida, and it’s what Republicans want to do to the entire United States.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/6/2179429/-Florida-law-has-schools-scared-to-teach-Shakespeare