The recent surge of book bans across the United States—driven by political debate over race, gender and sexuality—has not even spared the poem read at President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021.
Bob Graham Education Center, a K-8 school in Miami-Dade County, Florida removed Amanda Gorman’s poem, “The Hill We Climb,” from its elementary school shelves after a parent filed a complaint on the grounds that it “is not educational” and contains “indirect hate messages.” The move, however, still allows middle-schoolers to access the book.
“I’m gutted,” the 25-year-old Gorman said in a statement posted on social media Tuesday, explaining that “robbing children of the chance to find their voices in literature is a violation of their right to free thought and free speech.”
Read more at Time.