Photos posted to social media show a dumpster and cardboard boxes filled with books being discarded by a public college in Florida.
The photos were posted by a reporter for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
The books being discarded in the pictures appear to focus on the themes of LGBT, race, and feminism.
According to NBC News:
The book titles that are visible in the photos include “Cures: A Gay Man’s Odyssey,” “Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe,” “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom,” “Feminist Thought” and “Race Music: Black Cultures From Bebop to Hip-Hop.”
New College of Florida defended its actions in discarding the books, describing it as part of “longstanding annual procedures.”
“The images seen online of a dumpster of library materials is related to the standard weeding process,” the college said in a statement. “Chapter 273 of Florida statutes precludes New College from selling, donating or transferring these materials, which were purchased with state funds. Deselected materials are discarded, through a recycling process when possible.”
New College also confirmed that it had discarded books associated with its discontinued gender studies program. New College announced last year that it was dropping the program, several months after DeSantis appointed six new members to the college’s board of trustees with the reported aim of changing the college’s culture.
In May of last year, at a ceremony held at New College, DeSantis signed a bill into law that banned public universities and colleges in Florida from using state or federal funding for diversity programs.
“Separate from the New College library weeding its collection, a number of books associated with the discontinued Gender Studies program were removed from a room in Hamilton Center that is being repurposed,” the statement added.
Bacardi Jackson, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, denounced the disposal of the books in a lengthy and sharp statement on Thursday.
“These actions are nothing short of a cultural purge, reminiscent of some of history’s darkest times, where regimes sought to control thought by burning books and erasing knowledge,” Jackson wrote. “The fact that these books—sources of wisdom, diverse perspectives, and the narratives of marginalized communities—were discarded in the dead of night, without transparency, and without giving students the opportunity to preserve them, should outrage every Floridian and every American who values democracy and free thought.”
The selection of books for public school libraries, especially those for younger grade students, have become a hot topic in Florida. Governor DeSantis made the issue a focal point of his run for president during the Republican primaries.