Over the past several years, Florida has been a hotbed of controversy over state and local government efforts to restrict or ban certain books deemed unsuitable for children from school libraries. Many parents and residents in Florida have supported these book bans, while many other Floridians as well as authors and readers outside the state have opposed them.
This week, six major publishing companies and five major authors have filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Florida government over a 2023 law that allows parents and other residents to challenge certain books in school libraries. The plaintiffs argue that the book ban law violates the First Amendment because it allows overly broad content restrictions on books deemed “obscene” or “pornographic.” The Florida Department of Education, on the other hand, dismisses the suit and says that sexually explicit content should not be available in schools.
The Book Ban Law Being Challenged
In 2023, the Florida State Legislature passed and Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill (H.B.) 1069 as part of a package of bills that collectively made major changes to how sex education is handled in Florida schools. Under H.B. 1069, Florida parents and residents are allowed to petition schools to remove books from school libraries if they find those books to contain content that’s sexually explicit or pornographic.
Per this law, if a parent or resident files a complaint about a certain book, the school must remove that book from shelves within five days and can’t place it back on shelves until the issue is resolved. While parents are allowed to challenge multiple books at once, residents who don’t have children in the state’s schools can only request a book’s removal once a month.
The Groups Involved In The Lawsuit
Six major book publishers in the United States, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Hachette Book Group, and Sourcebooks, filed their lawsuit against Florida state government officials in the United States District Court in Orlando. The publishers named Ben Gibson and Ryan Petty, the Chair and Vice Chair, respectively, of the Florida State Board of Education, as well as several members of school boards in Orange and Volusia Counties, as defendants in the suit.
The Authors Guild, a nonprofit organization that advocates for writers’ rights when it comes to free speech, fair contracts, and copyright, has joined the suit against the book ban law, as have the writers Angie Thomas, John Green, Jodi Picoult, Laurie Halse Anderson, and Julia Alvarez. Finally, two parents and two students, one each from Orange County and Volusia County, have joined the suit.
The Plaintiffs’ Case Against The Law
The plaintiffs argue that H.B. 1069 is overly broad in the content it restricts because the law doesn’t define what amount or level of sexual content or conduct in a book qualifies it as obscene or pornographic and thus open to challenges for removal. They also state the law is unconstitutional because it violates the U.S. Supreme Court’s precedent in the 1973 case Miller v. California. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that media content should be reviewed as a whole and that a work can only be subject to state regulatory bans if it “appeals to the prurient interest,” depicts or describes sexual conduct “in a patently offensive way,” and lacks “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”
The plaintiffs explain that under HB 1069, school boards have taken an overly broad approach to obscenity and removed books that are not remotely obscene from shelves for being apparently inappropriate for school children to read. Among the books the plaintiffs argue should not have been removed include ones by the five writers in the suit, including Thomas’s The Hate U Give, Green’s Looking for Alaska, Picoult’s Change of Heart, Anderson’s Speak, and Alvarez’s How The García Girls Lost Their Accents. The plaintiffs state that the state’s interpretation of HB 1069 has led to a chilling effect on protected speech in Florida’s public schools.
While the plaintiffs don’t object that schools should have the ability to prevent obscene materials from appearing in school libraries, they argue that the law’s vague definitions have restricted access to many classic books and prevented students from reading books from diverse perspectives with diverse opinions. Dan Novack, the Vice President and Associate General Counsel of Random House, states that the lawsuit is focused on defending authors’ right to speak and young peoples’ right to read in Florida. Likewise, in their jointly released statement, the six publishers state that “educators, librarians, students, authors, [and] readers… deserve access to books and stories that show different perspectives and viewpoints.”
The Defendants’ Responses To The Suit
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Members of the school boards in Orange and Volusia Counties have not commented on the lawsuit’s claims about book bans yet. Volusia County school board members like director of community information Danielle Johnson, Chair Jamie Haynes, and Vice-Chair Anita Burnett told the Daytona Beach News-Journal that they were unable to comment on pending litigation. Michael Ollendorff, the media relations administrator for Orange County Schools, said that the district has not yet received a compliant.
Via a statement delivered by a spokesperson, the Florida Department of Education has dismissed the lawsuit as a “stunt.” Responding to a request for comment by the Florida Phoenix, the Department of Education’s communications director Sydney Booker said that there are no banned books in Florida and that “sexually explicit material and instruction are not suitable for schools.”
Final Thoughts
As this lawsuit shows, the legality of book bans remain a central focus in a nationwide debate about freedom of speech, students’ and parents’ rights in education, and the government’s role in regulating the books that can be in school libraries. The plaintiffs in this case argue that HB 1069’s overly broad definition of obscenity and pornographic content is unconstitutional and has led to too many books behind removed from public school libraries. The Florida state government, on the other hand, argues that books with sexually explicit content shouldn’t be in school libraries.
As the lawsuit was just filed yesterday, the federal district court in Orlando has yet to decide whether to take up the publishers’, Authors Guild’s, writers’, and parents’ and students’ case against the Florida Department of Education. If the court does take it, this case will become the latest flashpoint in the continuing culture war over whose rights should take precedence when determining which books belong in school libraries.
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