Florida schools plan to use only excerpts from Shakespeare to avoid ‘raunchiness’

Dunedin high school teacher Brandt Robinson, bottom-center, speaks during a march and rally to protest the ‘bad bills’ at city hall in St Petersburg, Florida, on 1 July. Photograph: Jefferee Woo/AP

Teachers in a Florida county are preparing to use only excerpts of works by William Shakespeare, rather than whole plays, as part of an attempt to conform to hardline rightwing legislation on teaching about sex.

“There’s some raunchiness in Shakespeare,” Joseph Cool, a reading teacher at Gaither high school in Hillsborough county, told the Tampa Bay Times. “Because that’s what sold tickets during his time.”