The country’s largest publishers sue Florida over school book bans
A group of major publishers, authors and parents have sued Florida education officials over a law that allows parents and local residents to limit what books are available in school libraries if they depict or describe “sexual conduct.”
The lawsuit filed by Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins and others alleges that the state law, enacted last year, brought about hundreds of book removals and is violating First Amendment rights to free speech.
According to the lawsuit, some of the books that Florida has required be removed from school libraries under House Bill 1069 include: Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple,” Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” and Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughter-House Five.”
The lawsuit challenges a section of the bill that requires school districts to remove a book that “depicts or describes sexual content” or is “pornographic.” One process to remove books from school libraries under the law allows parents to read out loud the controversial passages during a school board meeting, and if the board halts the reading due to explicit content, the school must “discontinue use of the material.”
Florida officials have described this week’s lawsuit as a “stunt.”
“There are no books banned in Florida,” said Nathalia Medina, a spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Education. “Sexually explicit material and instruction are not suitable for schools.”
Book bans have long been part of the country’s culture wars as school officials, parents and lawmakers tussle over how race, history and sexuality can be taught in school. Florida is at the forefront of the clash, as it leads the national surge in school book challenges, according to a report released in April by Pen America, a nonprofit advocating free speech.
Thursday’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in Orlando, argues that publishers and authors have the right to have their books read while students have the right, under the First Amendment, to “read constitutionally protected books, free from unconstitutional content-based restrictions mandated by the State of Florida.”
The suit alleges that House Bill 1069 does not consider the book as a whole before removing it for having “sexual content” and that it does not specify what level of detail mandates that a book be removed for describing sexual content. Another concern, the suit alleges, is that the law’s use of the term “pornographic” is vague and often books that are described as such “are not remotely obscene,” including Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye.”
The suit said the law allows for the removal of books before consulting “trained professionals, such as teachers or media specialists.” It adds that some teachers have shut down their classroom libraries out of fear of objections, controversies or the risk of losing their teaching licenses.
Previously, the office of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said the state’s Department of Education “does not ban books” and has described book ban allegations as a “hoax” or “false narrative.” His office has said the law “protects children from indoctrination” and gives parents and residents the ability to see the materials their children have access to at school as well as “the ability to object to inappropriate materials.”
However, Florida has faced criticism and lawsuits regarding removed books since last year. Between July 2021 and December 2023, Florida had 3,135 book bans recorded, according to PEN America.
The full group of plaintiffs challenging portions of Florida’s law includes publishing companies Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishing Group, Simon & Schuster and Sourcebooks; the Authors Guild, an organization that advocates on issues of free expression; authors such as Julia Alvarez, John Green, Laurie Halse Anderson, Jodi Picoult and Angie Thomas; and two parents, Heidi Kellogg and Judith Anne Hayes.
The complaint was filed against officials in the Florida State Board of Education, Orange County School Board and Volusia County School Board. DeSantis, who has led the charge for the law limiting books in school, is not named in the suit.
The suit is not attempting to overturn the entire law, the complaint stated, nor do publishing companies want Florida school districts to ensure school libraries do not carry obscene books. The goal is to reject parts of the law that prohibit content that “describes sexual conduct” and the vague description of the word “pornographic.”
Hayes, the mother of a student in Orange County, stated in the suit that she wants her child to be able to read books such as “Love in the Time of Cholera,” – a book by Gabriel García Márquez that she said was removed from her child’s classroom – without experiencing any roadblocks or “stigma associated with reading books that have been falsely branded as ‘pornographic’ or otherwise inappropriate.”