A free-speech organization, a major book publisher, authors, and parents of schoolchildren filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday alleging that a Florida school district violated the First Amendment by removing or restricting access to more than 150 library books.
The lawsuit, filed in Pensacola, argued that the Escambia County Schools book removals and restrictions “disproportionately targeted books by or about people of color and/or LGBTQ people, and have prescribed an orthodoxy of opinion that violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments.”
Plaintiffs in the challenge include PEN America, an organization whose mission is to “protect open expression in the United States and worldwide.”
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Major book publisher Penguin Random House LLC and several authors whose books have been removed or are subject to restricted access also are plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
A group of parents whose students attend Escambia County schools also are a part of the challenge, arguing that blocked or restricted access to the books threatens the students’ right to receive information.
“Books are being ordered removed from libraries, or subject to restricted access within those libraries, based on an ideologically driven campaign to push certain ideas out of schools,” part of the lawsuit said.
The legal challenge also alleged that school board officials are ignoring recommendations from experts within the district about the targeted books. “This disregard for professional guidance underscores that the agendas underlying the removals are ideological and political, not pedagogical,” lawyers for the plaintiffs argued.
The lawsuit seeks to require that the district restore the removed books to school libraries and to block the district from further removing or restricting access to targeted books.
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“This lawsuit brings together authors whose books have been banned, parents and students in the district who cannot access the books, and a publisher in a first-of-its-kind challenge to unlawful censorship,” PEN America said in a statement announcing the legal challenge Wednesday.
The lawsuit, filed in the federal Northern District of Florida, comes weeks after the Republican-controlled Legislature passed a measure (HB 1069) that bolsters an existing process for people to object to school-library books and instructional materials. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law on Wednesday. The new law requires, in part, that any books objected to on the bases that they contain pornographic material or describe “sexual conduct” be removed within five days of an objection and remain unavailable to students until the objection is resolved.
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