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.
Department of Education spokeswoman Sydney Booker on Thursday called the lawsuit “a stunt” and said “there are no books banned” in Florida.
“Sexually explicit material and instruction are not suitable for schools,” Booker said in an email.
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 such literary offerings as “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.”