DeSantis approves legislation restricting book removal requests

Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday signed legislation designed to limit what he deemed "frivolous" challenges to remove books from public schools, highlighting that activists had flooded the system with removal requests.

"Schools are there to serve the community... Schools are not there for you to try to go on some ideological joyride at the expense of our kids," he said, according to Politico.

The law follows a 2023 state requirement that schools remove pornographic materials and books deemed harmful to minors in response to any challenge and make them unavailable until its resolution.

In February of this year, DeSantis rejected characterizations of the state policy as a "book ban," and contended that activists were deliberately abusing the system.

"Over the past year, parents have used their rights to object to pornographic and sexually explicit material they found in school libraries," he said at the time. "We also know that some people have abused this process in an effort to score cheap political points."

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.