Free expression organization PEN America is suing Florida’s Escambia County School District and School Board, alleging that the district’s recent book bans areunconstitutional.
Joining PEN are authors, parents, and the largest book publisher in the country: Penguin Random House.
Dr. Jonathan Friedman
The school district’s recent attempts to challenge what books its students have access to began in 2022, with Northview High School language arts teacher Vicki Baggett challenging more than 100, including picture books, young adult novels, and nonfiction pieces.
According to the lawsuit – filed May 17 in federal court – the board’s removals and access restrictions of books about race and LGBTQ+ identities are in violation of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, the latter given that the selected books were disproportionately written by non-white and/or LGBTQ+ authors, and often contain matters related to race or LGBTQ+ identity.
In making these changes, the board dismissed recommendations from the district review committee responsible for assessing book challenges, the suit stated.
“By ignoring these recommendations, the school district made clear that its interests are in censoring certain ideas and viewpoints, not pedagogy, and that it is willing to allow an extremist minority to substitute its political agenda for the judgment of educators and parents,” the PEN America press release stated.
The lawsuit is asking for the affected books to be put back on school library shelves.
