| WARNING: The content of this newsletter might be offensive to some readers. It's about pornography. In recent months, some parents and other Floridians have complained that public schools have placed obscene and pornographic materials in front of students. They say it's against the law, and it is. But as Kathleen Daniels, president of the state's school library association, told the Hillsborough County School Board this week as it considered the fate of Juno Dawson's "This Book Is Gay, " calling something pornography and citing the statute "does not make it so." What seems to be the problem, she said, is "what constitutes pornography?" So let's discuss.
— Jeffrey S. Solochek, jsolochek@tampabay.com |
| So you say you've never read Florida Statutes Chapter 847 |
| In their push to get books and other materials yanked out of schools, people have invoked a chapter of Florida law that didn't get much attention before — Chapter 847 on obscenity. It's referred to in the law about school book and materials purchasing, where it says purchases must be suited to student needs, appropriate for their age level and "free of pornography" or anything harmful to minors.
Chapter 847 offers some guidelines on what that means though, as the Department of Education notes in its new media specialist training guide, "pornography" has no specific definition in state law. Here's what it does say:
"Harmful to minors" means any reproduction, imitation, characterization, description, exhibition, presentation, or representation, of whatever kind or form, depicting nudity, sexual conduct, or sexual excitement when it: (a) Predominantly appeals to a prurient, shameful, or morbid interest; (b) Is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable material or conduct for minors; and (c) Taken as a whole, is without serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.
The department goes further by providing schools with the dictionary definition of pornography as "the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement." It tells educators to "err on the side of caution" when making decisions.
All this has led to confusion, as people read the rules differently. Those intent on banning books from the schools focus on the part relating to nudity, sexual conduct or sexual excitement. Those who seek to keep as many books as possible in the schools note the part that sets the added criterion of having serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors. The result has been a hodgepodge of decisions. Let's take a look at three ways the issue has played itself out. |
| The Pinellas County school district banned Toni Morrison's novel "The Bluest Eye" from all high schools in January. The complaint centered on a 2-page rape scene of a young girl by her father. Those who wanted the book gone called the scene pornographic. One person criticized the entire novel as a fetish pedophilia rape book. Students in the course that was supposed to include the book countered that the novel was a landmark piece of American literature that showed the world through the eyes of an 11-year-old Black girl. The violent rape was not sexually arousing, they said, but rather an insight into another culture, however uncomfortable. Not pornography, they contended. The school district plans to revisit its decision. |
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
