Florida Education Commissioner Henry Mack sent a seven-page memo on September 23, 2026, to every district superintendent and charter school leader in the state. The directive orders districts to continuously audit their library and classroom collections, remove sexually explicit materials even when no parent or resident has filed a complaint in that district, and cross-check their holdings against the Florida Department of Education's annual list of books removed elsewhere in the state.
The memo lays out a nine-point action plan with a 90-day deadline. Districts must conduct immediate collection audits, freeze unvetted book donations, cross-reference the DOE's list of books removed in other counties, and establish panels called "Library Materials Integrity Panels" that include parents. Failure to comply can lead to investigations and the possible withholding of state funds, grants, and Florida Lottery money, according to the memo as reported by FL Voice News and WFLA.
What the memo requires
The memo cites two Florida statutes. Florida Statute 1006.28(2)(a) defines district school board responsibilities for instructional and library materials, and Florida Statute 1008.32(2)(a) authorizes the Commissioner of Education to investigate allegations of noncompliance and determine probable cause. Under Florida Statute 1008.32, the State Board of Education can withhold state funds, remove eligibility for competitive grants, and require periodic reporting until a district is back in compliance.
The existing law, however, does not explicitly require proactive audits or cross-district review. Florida Statute 1006.28(2)(a) requires that any material subject to an objection on the basis of pornography or depiction of sexual conduct be removed within five school days and remain unavailable until the objection is resolved. The DOE's own 2023 memorandum on House Bill 1069 confirms that removal is triggered by a formal objection, not by a standing mandate to audit. According to the Miami Herald, the memo's instruction to treat another county's removal as a requirement to review the same title exceeds what current law explicitly calls for.
Which districts are singled out
The memo specifically called out Hillsborough County. Mack stated that sexual content remained available in high school libraries, including "Call Me by Your Name" and "Jack of Hearts (And Other Parts)," and cited parents reading excerpts from "Beyond Magenta," "A Court of Wings and Ruin," and "The Bluest Eye" at a recent school board meeting, according to the Miami Herald and News Service of Florida. Hillsborough was one of more than 50 districts with zero book removals in the 2024-25 school year, per Spectrum Bay News 9. The prior year, after pressure from then-Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. and Attorney General James Uthmeier, the superintendent removed 49 titles and ordered roughly 600 others pulled for review, bypassing the district's committee-review process.
In the same memo, Mack praised Clay, Escambia, and Nassau counties for already removing substantial numbers of titles. According to the DOE's 2025-26 annual report, Clay County had 261 removals, Escambia had 150, and Nassau had 102. Together they account for the majority of nearly 600 books removed statewide. Fifty-seven of Florida's 67 counties reported zero removals.
Precedent in Florida and elsewhere
The memo's push for proactive audits resembles a model already in place in Duval County. Since 2023, Duval has conducted an ongoing internal review using two certified media specialists to evaluate its collection of more than 1.6 million books. As of 2026, the district had removed dozens of titles including "The Handmaid's Tale" and works by Maya Angelou, with 60 percent of recently reviewed secondary titles removed under Florida Statute 847.012. That district-level audit system is similar to what Mack's memo now mandates statewide, according to Jacksonville Today.
The legal landscape around book removals in Florida is unsettled. A federal judge struck down part of HB 1069, the 2023 law governing school library material objections, as unconstitutionally vague. The state is appealing, and the law remains in effect pending the appeals court ruling. Meanwhile, PEN America, along with Penguin Random House and individual authors, sued Escambia County in 2023 challenging the school board's removals as a First Amendment violation. That case is ongoing. Nassau County, also praised in the memo for removing 102 titles, reached an out-of-court settlement in a separate lawsuit that required the district to return removed titles to shelves.
What the research evidence says
Data on the scope of removals in Florida depends heavily on the definition used. The Florida DOE's annual report for the 2025-26 school year lists nearly 600 books removed statewide. PEN America, using a broader definition that includes books removed without formal challenges and books restricted by grade level or requiring parental permission, recorded more than 2,300 instances of book removals in Florida in the 2024-25 school year and rated Florida No. 1 in the nation for book bans. PEN America's count exceeds the DOE's because it captures administrative removals and restrictions outside the formal objection process. The two counts are not directly comparable.
PEN America and the Florida Freedom to Read Project have warned that the DOE's annual removed-books list could function as what they called a "de facto statewide blacklist." They urged districts to evaluate materials independently rather than treating another county's removal as justification for their own. That concern is directly implicated by the memo's directive to cross-check the list. The memo states that if a book was removed in another county, a district that holds the same book is "required" to review it.
The memo represents a shift from a complaint-driven process to a proactive, state-mandated audit regime with financial penalties. The legality of that shift rests on statutes that do not explicitly authorize proactive removal or cross-district review. And the underlying 2023 law is under appeal after being struck down as unconstitutionally vague. How the courts resolve those questions could shape whether the memo's requirements hold.