Why the Florida Book Ban Has Come for Shakespeare

Florida teachers are only going to use certain sections of William Shakespeare's works in their classes, cutting out any content that could be deemed to conflict with the state's new laws.

Students in Hillsborough County will still learn passages from Shakespeare's classics, such as Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, but if they wish to read the full text they will have to do it out of school hours.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, school officials are no longer teaching content from a number of books and writings amid new instructions resulting from revised standards across Florida. School district spokesperson Tanya Arja told the publication that the move "was in consideration of the law."

She referred to the Parental Rights in Education Act, signed into law by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, that prohibits a school district from encouraging classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in specific instances.

Violation of the law can result in a school district being ordered to pay "damages and reasonable attorney fees and court costs."

Hillsborough County Public School (HCPS) school board member Jessica Vaughn shared her concerns about the introduction of the law in a Monday Facebook post.

"Many of these decisions are causing a tremendous amount of anxiety and concern," she said. "HCPS is extremely committed to honoring state guidance and the law, as well as protecting our employees.

"I am extremely disappointed that the majority of our legislators and the governor's hand-appointed Department of Education are not being reflective of 'parental rights' and are ramming through education laws/rules without thoughtful feedback from the community, without much guidance of how to implement these rules/laws without affecting student achievement, without much employee feedback and with almost no clarity of the penalties associated with these new laws, rules."

Joseph Cool, a reading teacher at Gaither High School, said the decision came at a price.

He told the Tampa Bay Times: "There's some raunchiness in Shakespeare because that's what sold tickets in his time. I think the rest of the nation - no the world, is laughing at us.

"Taking Shakespeare in its entirety out because the relationship between Romeo and Juliet is somehow exploiting minors is just absurd."

King's College London's professor of Shakespeare studies, Dr. Sonia Massai, told Newsweek that censorship and redactions of parts of Shakespeare's work are not new and have occurred over several centuries, including in a 1640 edition of his poems that swapped pronouns in the love text Sonnets from male to female, conforming to heterosexual norms of the time.

Massai said: "I can understand that extracts and shortened texts can be more practical for younger children but from high school it is important to read the text and to do so slowly and chronologically as they [the plays] are carefully constructed and reading only in part can distort your perception of the text, and prompt a different interpretation than if you read it in full."

She added: "It is important we are more mindful and approach subjects such as gender, race, and nationality with care as you can say something that is quite damaging but it [cutting back] limits the freedom of teachers to teach the past, and I view the past as a foreign country if we forget it we lose our way."

DeSantis, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination, signed the Parental Rights in Education Act into law in March 2022, and it became effective in July of that year. The law is part of the governor's clash with what he calls "woke" ideology and limits classroom discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity through to the third grade.

It also prevents public schools from adopting procedures or support for students that maintain confidentiality, including over their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Critics of the bill have commented that the law does little to benefit children in the state, while supporters believe it limits efforts to politicize classrooms in Florida.

Newsweek has contacted the HCPS and DeSantis' office for comment.