Amanda Gorman is speaking out against book bans, which caused the poem she recited at President Biden’s inauguration to be restricted at a Florida school, highlighting that it takes just a single complaint from a parent to “render that book inaccessible for everyone.”
“What I think is important to really absorb is there were thousands of books that were banned last year — over 2,500,” the 25-year-old poet said in a Wednesday interview on “CBS Mornings.”
“According to The Washington Post, the majority of those filed complaints were by 11 people,” Gorman said. “What that underscores for me is with how the structure works around schools and libraries with laws that have been passed: All it takes is one person or one quickly written complaint to render that book inaccessible for everyone else in that community.”
Gorman said last month that her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” which she famously performed at Biden’s 2021 inauguration, was restricted by a school in Florida’s Miami-Dade County.
“I’m fine with some parents not liking my poetry — that’s completely in their right,” Gorman told “CBS Mornings” co-hosts Gayle King, Vladimir Duthiers, Nate Burleson and Tony Dokoupil.
“But when we get to the situation where that one’s person dislike of my work leads to everyone else not having access to that, that is a huge issue I think because it encroaches on our freedom to really absorb, and love, and enjoy literature from where we are,” she said.
Gorman said she was shocked and saddened when she first learned of the Florida school limiting access to “The Hill We Climb” following a complaint.
“I couldn’t understand a reason for rendering this piece as inappropriate for elementary school students,” she said.
“When I wrote ‘The Hill We Climb,’ it was so important for me that young people would see themselves represented in a significant moment in our democratic history,” Gorman said, “and that the reality of that and that moment would be erased for young people who deserve to see themselves at a place, station like that — that was just really disappointing.”
Gorman noted research that showed the majority of book bans involve “characters of color or talk about race in some way” along with figures “that are of the LGBTQ community or touch upon those themes.”
“I have to think about what messaging that sends to young readers. It’s as if you’re saying, ‘You are inappropriate if you’re African American. You are inappropriate if you are gay. You are inappropriate if you are an immigrant.’”
“There’s this huge argument that it’s about protecting and sheltering our children from themes that are just too advanced from them,” Gorman continued. “But when you look at the majority of the books, that have actually been banned, it’s more about creating a bookshelf that doesn’t represent the diverse facets of America.”