Amanda Gorman slammed officials at a school in Miami-Dade County, Florida, on Tuesday for banning elementary students from reading “The Hill We Climb,” the poem she famously recited at President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential inauguration.
The poem will now only be accessible to middle school students at the Bob Graham Education Center in Miami Lakes, Florida, according to The Miami Herald.
In an attempt to fight back, Gorman said her publisher – Penguin Random House – is joining PEN America and others in a lawsuit to challenge book restrictions.
“I’m gutted,” the former and first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate wrote on Instagram about the Bob Graham Education Center’s decision to ban her work from the students it serves. The decision was made after one parent complained, Gorman wrote.
She also took to Twitter, saying, “So they ban my book from young readers . . fail to specify what parts of my poetry they object to, refuse to read any reviews, and offer no alternatives. Unnecessary #bookbans like these are on the rise, and we must fight back.”
Officials at the school defended their actions and say they haven’t banned the book.
“No literature (books or poem) has been banned or removed,” the school said in a statement. “It was determined at the school that ‘The Hill We Climb’ is better suited for middle school students and, it was shelved in the middle school section of the media center. The book remains available in the media center.”
Read the full text: ‘The Hill We Climb’Amanda Gorman performs powerful poem at inauguration:
Issues surrounding books are a hotbed of controversy in Florida. Just this week, PEN America and publisher Penguin Random House announced they are trying to block book bans in a Florida Panhandle county.
They filed suit in federal court Wednesday morning, alleging the book bans in Escambia County public schools are unconstitutional.
In March, the Florida teachers union and other groups sued the state’s education department, saying the way it interpreted a new law about school library books goes further than the law intended, leading to censorship and book bans.
A Florida law passed last year requires more transparency about what materials schools use to teach students. The new law requires districts to catalog every book on their shelves and create a formal review process for complaints. Some parents have asked for certain books to be removed from schools because of the new law.
“This legislation aims to preserve the rights of parents to make decisions about what materials their children are exposed to in school,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at the time.
Gorman says her poem is important reading for children.
“I wrote The Hill We Climb so that all young people could see themselves in a historical moment. I’ve received countless letters and videos from children inspired by The Hill We Climb to write their own poems,” she wrote. “Robbing children of the chance to find their voices in literature is a violation of their right to free thought and free speech.”
The school’s move is the latest in a slew of efforts to remove literature that addresses racial and social justice from classrooms nationwide.
In her post, she called on her followers to donate to PEN America “as they protect literature.”
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Contact Kayla Jimenez at kjimenez@usatoday.com. Follow her on Twitter at @kaylajjimenez.
