Conservative 'Moms for Liberty' enraged after Brevard County teacher raises $5k for 'banned book' drive

A teacher in Brevard County, Fla., is raising money in an effort to get banned books back into the hands of students.

According to Florida Today, Adam Tritt, an advanced placement English teacher at Bayside High, launched the fundraiser in hopes of purchasing challenged reading material like "Slaughterhouse-Five" for his students' summer reading requirements. However, the list of books quickly drew backlash from critics.

Per Florida Today:

"Tritt will focus on a few books that the Brevard chapter of Moms for Liberty challenged, plus a few he thinks are soon to follow. 'Slaughterhouse-Five' will be the main focus, he said. He will also seek out copies of 'Forever' by Judy Blume, 'Perks of Being a Wallflower' by Stephen Chbosky, 'The Kite Runner' by Khaled Hosseini, 'All Boys Aren’t Blue' by George Matthew Johnson and 'This Book is Gay' by Juno Dawson.'"

The Brevard Chapter of Moms for Liberty is one group pushing back against Tritt's initiative, reportedly sharing screenshots of Tritt's post about the fundraiser. On May 19,Tritt posted in a private Facebook group called Families for Safe School; a group that previously expressed disapproval of Moms for Liberty.

In response to Tritt's post about the fundraiser, the Brevard Moms for Liberty chapter took to their Facebook page and wrote, “Warnings to our children…1994: Don’t take candy from strangers. 2022: Don’t take pornographic books from strangers.”

In another Facebook post, the moms also said, "All we want is for content that violates child obscenity laws to be removed from SCHOOL libraries."

Despite the backlash, Tritt is still standing behind his initiative.

“People think I must have thick skin,” he said. “I don’t … I'm just a little guy trying to teach kids to think and read and write clearly so they can go to college and be good citizens. That's it."

Tritt also defended the selections as he insists they are age appropriate.

“If they're 15 or 16, these books are geared toward that age,” Tritt said. “You could be seventh or eighth grade and read, ‘Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret,’ But I wanted to have parents there so there will be supervision."

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