ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Shortly after the Florida Board of Education finished its August meeting in St. Augustine Wednesday, a group of authors, parents, students and literature advocates gathered just outside the meeting room. PEN America, a freedom of literature nonprofit, helped lead the gathering.

The push to remove books in Florida started in earnest in 2023 with a new state law. Then earlier this summer, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier sent the Hillsborough County School Superintendent a letter requesting "immediate removal" of certain books in schools, saying they were “patently pornographic.”

State Board of Education Member Ryan Perry told the superintendent in June, "I’ve read through these books. These are nasty, disgusting books. They have no place in a school in Florida

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