Students at Amanda Gorman’s Alma Mater Fight For Her Banned Poem

By Angela Johnson

Amanda Gorman made news and history as the youngest inaugural poet when she wrote “The Hill We Climb” for President Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration. Two years later, her poem is back in the news as Daily Salinas, a parent of two children, had it removed from a Miami-area elementary school for including what she believed to be “indirect hate messages” and “references to critical race theory.”

But while Gorman’s work is caught in the crosshairs of a conservative temper tantrum, students at Gorman’s former school are showing their support for one of their own.

A group of 11 elementary school students at New Roads School in Santa Monica, California recited “The Hill We Climb” at an assembly last week. And on June 1, first and fourth graders at the school wrote letters of support to Amanda Gorman and the students at Bob Graham Education Center in Florida. The letters will be shared at an all-school meeting on Friday, June 2.

Making sure students have access to Gorman’s poem is important to New Roads’ Head of School, Luthern Williams, who is a Black man. As he told The Root exclusively, he believes reading is one of the most important ways to allow children to hear diverse perspectives – and why it’s a key component of his school’s mission to prepare young people for life by developing “a personal dedication to learning, a respect for independent thinking, an expanding curiosity about the world and its people, and a commitment to the common good.”

“One of the foundations of the education at New Roads is to develop critical, informed, compassionate citizens because we think that’s fundamental to democracy. And we think that democracy doesn’t work unless children are educated and they understand various perspectives. One of the means by which that happens is through books,” he said. “Books open up the world for children to be able to understand themselves, to understand others and understand how to make democracy work. Reading is the road to liberation, and that is a right for which our young people know they must fight as responsible citizens in a democratic society. That is one of the most important lessons we teach.”

FL Parent Has DeSantis on Her Side

Although Salinas admits she’s only read snippets of the poem, she stands by her rant and even has Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis on her side.

He set the stage for her complaint in 2022 with HB 1467 which gives parents the power to complain about books in schools and calls for school districts to have a plan to deal with their issues. And last week, he publicly defended Ms. Salinas’ careless complaint, calling the whole thing is much ado about nothing.

“The media, when they talk about ‘book ban.’ “Understand that is a hoax. They are creating a false narrative,” he said at the Florida Parent Educators Association Homeschool Convention in Orlando.