Amanda Gorman says she’s ‘gutted’ by Florida school’s decision to ban her book

Amanda Gorman, the accomplished inaugural poet who recited “The Hill We Climb” during President Biden’s 2020 presidential inauguration, is calling out Florida schools for their latest book that’s been banned—her own.

The inaugural poem, which has been published as a short book, will no longer be accessible to elementary students at Bob Graham Education Center in Miami Lakes, Florida. Gorman said her publisher, Penguin Random House, is joining PEN America and others in a lawsuit to challenge book restrictions.

“I’m gutted,” the National Youth Poet Laureate wrote on Instagram about the school’s decision to ban her book from elementary students. The decision to ban “The Hill We Climb” was made after one parent complained, according to Gorman.

The school also incorrectly listed Oprah Winfrey as the author/publisher, according to documents obtained by the Florida Freedom to Read Project. The school’s reasoning behind the ban cites that it “is not educational and have (sic) indirectly hate messages,” according to the complaint. It also says the poem would “cause confusion and indoctrinate students.”

Related: Florida teachers forced to remove books from their classrooms—or face felony charges

The poem itself was written to benefit and serve the very students who can no longer read it at the Bob Graham Education Center, in an unfortunate twist of irony.

“I wrote ‘The Hill We Climb’ so that all young people could see themselves in a historical moment. Ever since, I’ve received countless letters and videos from children inspired by ‘The Hill We Climb’ to write their own poems,” Gorman wrote. “Robbing children of the chance to find their voices in literature is a violation of their right to free thought and free speech.”

In a statement to CNN Tuesday evening, Miami-Dade County Public Schools spokesperson Elmo Lugo said, “No literature (books or poem) has been banned or removed.”

Related: ‘Girls Who Code’ books now banned in schools thanks to conservative moms organization

“It was determined at the school that ‘The Hill We Climb’ is better suited for middle school students and, it was shelved in the middle school section of the media center. The book remains available in the media center,” he said.

Gorman was the first-ever Youth Poet Laureate in the United States at just 16 years old. She was 22 when she performed “The Hill We Climb” at the inauguration. The poem was inspired by the Capitol insurrection two weeks prior to the inauguration, criticizing the “force that would shatter our nation rather than share it.”