New College Tosses Thousands Of Books On Gender, LGBTQ+ Topics

SARASOTA, FL — New College of Florida in Sarasota threw out thousands of books from its defunct Gender and Diversity Center, according to multiple reports.

Most of the books, which touched upon gender, LGBTQ+, race and other issues, were tossed in a dumpster outside the Jane Bancroft Cook Library on campus and hauled away by trash collectors.

Students weren’t notified about the purge, though in the past, they were given the chance to purchase any books being removed from the library’s collection, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported.

The Social Equity Through Education Alliance (SEE) was able to recover a few hundred books that were left on the ground, WTSP reported.

Among the titles thrown out by the school were "Nine and Counting: The Women of the Senate", "The War of the Worlds" and "When I Knew," a collection of stories from LGBTQ+ people sharing when they knew they were gay, the Herald-Tribune said.

The college has been the center of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ attack on gender, diversity and inclusion efforts at public colleges across Florida in recent years. In early 2023, he appointed six conservative trustees to the New College board. The small

These new board members joined the college with the goal of abolishing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. They also went on to fire the college’s president; Republican leader and former Florida commissioner of education Richard Corcoran took over that role.

In October, the school announced it was shutting down its gender studies department, leading to the clearing out of the Gender and Diversity Center, upsetting students.

“I saw that dumpster full of books from the library,” Natalia Benavides, an incoming senior, told WTSP. “And I said, ‘This is horrendous.’Plenty of people could re-home those books and take care of them, and they're just sitting there.”

“This is just a new low,” Zander Moricz, SEE executive director, said. “It also, beyond being evil, beyond being stupid, is wasteful and does not make sense.”