Governor Signs Bill Limiting Book Challenges by Activists Such as Clay County's Friedman
Limits Those Without Children in District to 12 Petitions a Year (Video)
Governor Ron DeSantis yesterday signed a bill that limits the number of books Clay County anti-porn crusader Bruce Friedman can challenge to only 12 a year. Friedman was a major factor in making ours the top county in Florida for book challenges for 2020-23.
Friedman would not say whether he would seek to challenge the law, which doesn’t name him specifically, but appears to have been crafted to fit his profile—someone without children in the district schools who has lodged numerous book challenges, which include titles that have long been considered educational, not pornographic.
The bill also requires that book challengers without children in a school district to pay a $100 “processing fee” per book challenge after filing five challenges that were denied by the district.
The book-challenge limits were part of HB 1285, described by the governor “a potpourri of education reforms packed into one bill” during the signing at Jacksonville Classical Academy.
“The idea that someone can use the parents rights and the curriculum transparency to start objecting to every single book to try to make a mockery of this is just wrong,” DeSantis said. “That’s performative. That’s political…That involves objecting to normal books, like some of the books that I saw in the teacher’s lounge, these classic books.”
The reforms do not limit book challenges by parents who do have a child in a district school. DeSantis said the reforms targeted “a cottage industry of people…who want to advance themselves.”
Reached after the signing, Friedman was asked whether he would seek to overturn the provision of HB 1285 limiting his challenges, which so far number in the hundreds. And, while he would not answer the question, he did issue this statement:
Every American citizen is entitled to redress of grievances. Whether or not they teach, or had or have a child in the district, if they pay taxes, they deserve a voice. One decent community standard when detailed, could be used to create a rubric for past and future books (acquisitions). We could demand the libraries be cleaned up. We could demand that the persons that caused the mess be retrained and restrained.
This is not rocket science but the "trained professionals" failed to protect children. They have been exposed. They put porn in the spaces we ought to trust as safe for children. The American Bill of Rights (unlike the Marxist tripe offered by the American Library Association) doesn't mention free speech limitations at all. I won't accept any.