It’s Working! Part 9: Harmful Books Removed in Polk County, Policies Updated, The Fight Continues
From zero action to 117 books removed: how local citizens transformed schools, removed harmful material, and why vigilance remains critical after a five-year fight.
This is the ninth post in an ongoing series about the continuing five-year saga of age-inappropriate books in the Polk County Florida Public Schools.
If you haven’t read the earlier posts, you can catch up here:
It’s NOT Working, Part 1. Sexually explicit and pornographic books in Polk County Public Schools
It’s NOT Working, Part 3. What does real “BOOK BANNING” look like?
It’s NOT Working, Part 5 Polk County Public School Board Members: “Identical”, by Ellen Hopkins
It’s Not Working Part 8: The Attack on our Children from the film “Time Of Deceit”
Five years ago, a group of local citizens in Polk County, Florida discovered something no parent should ever have to discover: that their tax dollars were funding sexually explicit, pornographic, and deeply harmful books, available to children as young as 13, sitting on the shelves of their public school libraries. With no warning. No parental consent. No accountability.
What followed was one of the most remarkable examples of citizen-driven accountability in Florida’s recent history.
This is the story of what happened. What was won. What was lost. And why the fight is NOT over.
🔥 HOW IT STARTED: THE SPARK OF 2021
In 2021, citizens discovered the problem. Books containing graphic rape, pedophilia, sodomy, bestiality, incest, and explicit sexual content, content that would earn an R or NC-17 rating in any other medium, were sitting in Polk County Public School libraries, accessible to minor children.
Citizens Defending Freedom brought the issue before the community. And citizens showed up.
They read excerpts at school board meetings. They filed formal complaints. They spoke for children who could not speak for themselves.
The board’s response? Dismissal. Deflection. And a school board member who called citizen engagement at a public meeting “CHAOS.”
That was the wrong answer. And citizens had no intention of letting it stand.
💪 CITIZENS IN ACTION: 2022–2025
In 2022, 106 local citizens filed formal complaints with Sheriff Grady Judd’s office and local police substations regarding the harmful library material.
Sheriff Judd acknowledged the content was harmful, but noted that no clear legal mechanism existed at the time to force removal.
That acknowledgment became a turning point. Rather than walk away, CDF and citizens got to work on what they COULD do: building legislative solutions in Tallahassee, developing local accountability tools like What’s in Polk County School Libraries, and What’s in the Hillsbourough County School Libraries, using resources like BookLooks and more recently RatedBooks.org, a resource that now empowers citizens NATIONALLY to monitor what is in public school libraries. Citizens began documenting, challenging, and showing up at every single local board meeting.
While Polk County dragged its feet, other Florida counties were acting. By late 2023:
Clay County had removed 177 books
Martin County removed 98 out of 110 challenged books
Manatee County removed 25 of 43
Indian River County removed 34
Osceola County removed 21 books, ALL of which were ALSO in Polk County’s libraries
And Polk County?
ZERO. CERO. ZIP. NADA. 零 (LING.) NONE.
These tools now empower citizens nationally to monitor what’s in public school libraries.
⚖️ THE LAWSUIT: EARLY 2024
Three years into the fight, with zero books removed and 70+ citizen-submitted complaints ignored, Citizens Defending Freedom, represented by attorney and former Florida State Representative Anthony Sabatini, filed a lawsuit against the Polk County School Board for failing to follow their own book review policies, citing violations of Florida Statutes 1006.28 and 847.012.
The lawsuit made national headlines. It brought scrutiny not just to Polk County but to school districts across the state. And something remarkable began to happen.
The board started moving.
📊 THE NUMBERS THAT MATTER
Here is what five years of citizen engagement produced:
135 books formally challenged
117 books removed from Polk County school libraries
6 books currently in appeal
5 books awaiting challenge committee review
4 books newly delivered and pending review
2 books appealed and retained at district level
1 book appeal not accepted
School Board Book Review and Challenge Policies updated at least 3 times
Every single number represents a citizen who showed up, spoke up, and refused to back down.
🏛️ WHAT HAPPENED IN FLORIDA LEGISLATION
The Polk County fight did not stay local. It echoed in Tallahassee.
2025 Session: A “Harmful to Minors” bill passed the Florida House 81-29, then stalled in the Senate.
2026 Session: The same bill came back stronger and passed the Florida House 84-28, and stalled in the Senate again.
The Senate’s failure to act is a story for another day. But the result of the statewide pressure was real: districts across Florida, including Hillsborough County, came under intense scrutiny, and widely-circulated titles were removed.
📺 Watch: Hillsborough Superintendent Van Ayers Grilled Over Book Removals
⚖️ THE COURT CASE: MARCH 2026
In March 2026, the court ruled that the plaintiffs did not meet the legal threshold for relief.
That stings. And it deserves to be said plainly: we did not get the courtroom victory we wanted.
But here is the FULL truth of what happened:
Much of the case had already been resolved before judgment, because the board, under the pressure of the lawsuit, updated its policies at least three times
All challenged titles had been permanently removed from the Polk County catalog before the case even went to trial
The board’s own actions essentially mooted the case, meaning the lawsuit had already accomplished what it set out to do
The court did not give us the ruling. But the children got the protection.
Not the Verdict We Wanted. But the Results Spoke Louder.
This was NEVER about a courtroom trophy. It was always about one thing: protecting children from the sexualization being funded by their own parents’ tax dollars.
Mission accomplished.
WHAT THIS VICTORY MEANS
Age-appropriate materials is now being ensured in Polk County public schools
Policy reform provides lasting protections
🚫 WHAT BOOKS HAVE BEEN “BANNED”?
NONE.
Not one single book has been “banned.” Every title removed from Polk County school libraries is currently available online and in stores. If a book were actually banned, it would be unavailable for purchase anywhere. That is what a ban looks like.
No school would ever screen The Exorcist, Eyes Wide Shut, Boogie Nights, Basic Instinct, or The Hangover in a classroom. Does that mean those movies are “banned”? Of course not. They are freely available on every streaming service.
The same principle applies to books. Removing explicit, pornographic content from a public school library is not a ban. It is curation. It is child protection. It is what responsible adults do.
Even Newsweek has weighed in: removing explicit material from children’s shelves is not a ban. It is basic protection of minors, a common-sense practice until recently.
“For decades, the American Left has redefined “book ban” to mean any curation or removal of books from public school libraries, especially those with pornographic content. School libraries have always had limited collections, selected through often politicized decisions by bureaucrats, and were never meant to stock every book ever published. Removing explicit material from children’s shelves is not a “ban”- it’s basic protection of minors, a common-sense practice until recently…. Crying “book ban” when schools curate content, or when Florida removes pornography, is dishonest activism. Poor curriculum choices aren’t fixed by federal bullying from the Biden administration.”
⚠️ ONGOING CHALLENGES: THE FIGHT IS NOT OVER
The progress is real. But so is the danger of complacency.
Some book review committees still include 2 to 3 minor-aged children, from ages 15-17, students being asked to determine what content is appropriate for their own peers.
During the March 2026 trial, the school board’s legal team and the Polk County Schools Superintendent actually argued that minor students could appropriately serve on these committees simply because their parents had signed a permission slip. The Superintendent went even further, claiming that barring minors from serving on these committees would violate the Parental Bill of Rights.
Let that sink in for a moment.
The same logic that says a parent’s signature gives a 15-year-old the authority to evaluate pornographic content for their classmates would also suggest that a parent’s signature should allow that same 15-year-old to enter a strip club, purchase alcohol, or buy a ticket to an X-rated film.
Would that argument hold up? Of course not.
No judge in Florida would allow a minor into an adult entertainment venue on the basis of a permission slip. No liquor store would serve a 16-year-old because mom signed a note. No movie theater would seat a 15-year-old for an adults-only film because dad approved it. The law does not work that way, and everyone knows it.
And yet the Polk County School Board’s position, argued before a judge in open court in 2026, is that the Parental Bill of Rights requires that minors be allowed to evaluate sexually explicit and pornographic material for their school libraries, as long as a parent agrees.
This is not a defense of parental rights. This is a distortion of parental rights used as a shield to protect a policy that places an adult burden on children.
Supplying harmful or pornographic material to a minor is a third-degree felony under Florida law. Parental permission does not change the nature of the material. It does not override Florida Statutes 1006.28 and 847.012. And it does not make it appropriate, legally or morally, to ask a teenager to sit on a committee and decide whether graphic sexual content belongs in front of their classmates.
This argument does not just fail legally. It is a moral outrage.
Polk County Schools also conducts two large library purchases every year. The risk of inappropriate materials returning to shelves is real. The appetite to restore explicit content to school libraries has not diminished. And the Senate’s repeated failure to pass the “Harmful to Minors” bill means statewide protection remains incomplete.
🛡️ WHO STANDS IN THE GAP?
Parents
Grandparents
Concerned citizens
Community groups
Churches and people of faith
Your involvement is not optional. It is essential. What happened in Polk County has made a difference for the entire state of Florida, and what was done here can be replicated by citizens who want to defend freedom and protect children anywhere in the United States.
🏆 WHAT THIS VICTORY MEANS
Because of local citizens in Polk County:
✅ 117 harmful books removed from school libraries
✅ Book review policies updated at least 3 times
✅ Statewide reform spreading, with Hillsborough and other counties under scrutiny
✅ RatedBooks.org giving citizens nationwide the tools to fight back
✅ Children better protected than they were five years ago
"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." — Joshua 1:9
WE’VE STILL GOT WORK TO DO.
Stand with us. Stay engaged. Protect children. Support families. Hold institutions accountable.
In faith and action, Robert Goodman Southeast Regional Director, Citizens Defending Freedom 📧 rgoodman@ccdfusa.com
Want to get involved or replicate this in your county? Leave a comment below or reach out directly.