The Orlando Sentinel reports that Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, Harper Collins, and three other publishers filed a lawsuit Thursday against school board members in Orange and Volusia County school districts. The lawsuit alleges that a 2023 Florida law that increased scrutiny of school library books unconstitutionally limits free speech.
- Florida Department of Education spokesperson Sydney Booker described the lawsuit as a “stunt,” in an email to the Tampa Bay Times.
- “There are no books banned in Florida,” Booker wrote. “Sexually explicit material and instruction are not suitable for schools.”
Orange County Public Schools pulled 673 books from teachers’ classroom shelves, the Orlando Sentinel reported in December 2023.
- Those titles include “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens and “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank.
Dig Deeper: From the News Service of Florida
Some of the nation’s largest book publishers joined authors and parents of high-school students in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday challenging a 2023 law that increased scrutiny of school library books, arguing that the law unconstitutionally violates speech rights. Penguin Random House LLC; Hachette Book Group, Inc.; HarperCollins Publishers LLC; Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC; Simon & Schuster, LLC; and Sourcebooks LLC alleged in the lawsuit that their books “have been targeted for removal or removed from school libraries” throughout the state following last year’s passage of the law (HB 1069).
- The lawsuit challenges portions of the law that prohibit books with content that “describes sexual conduct” or contain “pornographic” content. The law imposes “a regime of strict censorship in school libraries” and requires school districts to “remove library books without regard to their literary, artistic, political, scientific, or educational value when taken as a whole,” the lawsuit said.
Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit include authors Julia Alvarez, John Green, Laurie Halse Anderson, Jodi Picoult and Angie Thomas, who alleged “the removal of their books from school libraries, including the associated stigma, causes them personal and professional harm.”
Mothers of two high-school students in Volusia and Orange counties also are plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the latest in a number of legal challenges to the state’s ongoing efforts to restrict students’ access to books deemed unsuitable for children. Defendants in Thursday’s lawsuit include state education officials as well as education officials in Volusia and Orange counties.
The lawsuit maintains that districts have removed “hundreds” of titles from school libraries since Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the law last year, including “Love in the Time of Cholera” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The lawsuit alleges the 2023 law is “impermissibly” vague and overbroad.
“The right to speak and the right to read are inextricably intertwined. Authors have the right to communicate their ideas to students without undue interference from the government. Students have a corresponding right to receive those ideas. Publishers and educators connect authors to students. If the State of Florida dislikes an author’s idea, it can offer a competing message. It cannot suppress the disfavored message,” the lawsuit said.
The 2023 law, in part, made the process of objecting to books and instructional materials easier — and came amid legal and political fights in Florida and other states about removing books from school shelves.
- Penguin Random House also is a plaintiff in an ongoing federal lawsuit challenging the removal or restriction of books by Escambia County school officials. A separate federal lawsuit challenges Escambia County’s removal of the children’s book “And Tango Makes Three,” which tells the story of two male penguins who raised a penguin chick at New York’s Central Park Zoo.
That lawsuit contends, at least in part, that the book was targeted for depicting same-sex parents raising a child. Three Florida parents in June filed a federal lawsuit alleging the process for removing books unconstitutionally discriminates against parents who disagree with “the state’s favored viewpoint.”
Early Morning Homicide
From the Pensacola Police Department:
Pensacola Police Department are investigating a shooting Friday morning in the area of 11th and Baars St.
Detectives are investigating the shooting. There are no other details at this time on the circumstances or any suspect(s)
