A Florida school rejects a poem by Amanda Gorman for the inauguration of Biden

Conservative parents and school boards in the state have recently ordered the removal of dozens of books from the shelves of public school libraries.
The poem “The Hill We Climb,” which was performed live in front of an audience of about 34 million people, has been made unavailable to pupils at a Florida school, according to the poet.

Amanda Gorman, who was 22 years old when she delivered a much acclaimed reading of her work from the Capitol steps on January 21, 2021, said in a statement late Tuesday that she was “gutted” by the decision to limit her work.

The Hill We Climb, my debut poem, has been prohibited from a Miami-Dade County, Florida elementary school due to a single parent’s protest, she said on Twitter.

According to her, it is against their right to free speech and thinking to deny youngsters the opportunity to discover their voices through books.
Right-wing hardliner Governor Ron DeSantis, who announced on Wednesday that he will run for the Republican presidential nomination, has established a name for himself by criticizing what he refers to as “woke” culture. Among the measures are legislation approved to limit sex education and gender identity training in schools and to stop diversity initiatives in state-funded colleges.

Conservative parents and school boards have recently ordered a number of books to be taken off the shelves of the state’s school libraries because they were judged unsuitable for youngsters.

The Bob Graham Education Center, the school, decided to focus on Gorman’s poetry as a result of a complaint from the mother of two pupils. The organization moved the poem to the library for kids over 11 and forbade it from being read in the primary school.

Gorman, who is Black and was speaking in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s divisive administration, became a literary celebrity for her performance of the poem during the live television event, which was seen by an estimated 33.8 million people.

A printout of the parent’s complaint, as described by Gorman, revealed the parent protesting because the poem is “not educational and have indirectly hate messages.”

The parent responded, “I don’t need it,” to the question on the official form asking whether the complaint was aware of expert evaluations. Aiming to “cause confusion and indoctrinate students,” she said, was the poem’s stated goal.

In response to a question on the event, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Biden “was extremely happy to have her (Gorman) at his inauguration. Censorship is what book bans are, end of story.

Gorman was the first person to receive the title of National Youth Poet Laureate and the youngest poet ever to perform at a US presidential inauguration.