The Florida Freedom to Read Project provided PEN America with a list of the books removed from school libraries. Here are some of the titles and authors:
Biographies of Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Nicki Minaj, and Thurgood Marshall are on the list, alongside The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Black Panther comics by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The Feminism Book was banned along with The Teen Vogue Handbook: An Insider’s Guide to Careers in Fashion.
The list also includes Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl, The Adventures and the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile. The Princess Diaries and 14 other books by Meg Cabot have been taken from libraries, alongside books by David Baldacci, Michael Crichton, Carl Hiassen, Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, Stephen King (23 of them), Dean Koontz, Cormac McCarthy, James Patterson and Jodi Picoult.
And these removals resulted in PEN America filing what it described as a first-of-its-kind federal lawsuit claiming that the Escambia County School Board violated the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights through its removal and restriction of school library books.
The other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which was filed in May 2023, include the publisher Penguin Random House, five authors of banned books, and seven Escambia County parents. The lawsuit asks that the books be returned to school library shelves.
On Wednesday, the first hearing in the case took place in a federal district court in Pensacola. In the hearing, U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell II rejected a motion by the Escambia school board to dismiss the lawsuit, according to PEN America. The judge ruled that the plaintiffs have standing to pursue their claims under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This clears the way for the case to proceed to a jury trial if the judge’s ruling stands.
The ruling represents a rebuff to DeSantis who has accused mainstream media, teachers’ unions, and leftist activists of perpetrating a “book ban hoax.”
Katie Blankenship, director of PEN America’s Florida Office, issued this statement in response to the judge’s ruling:
“Today, we urged the court to vindicate the Constitutional rights of students, parents, authors and publishers. We are heartened that Judge Wetherell agreed and that our case can proceed. These books need to be returned to the shelves where they belong, and every day that students are refused access is a day they’re not getting the high-quality education they deserve. This case cuts to the heart of who we are as a country, and for the sake of our children and the future of our democracy, it’s critical that we adhere to the language of the First Amendment and the precedents of our federal courts.”
The Pensacola News Journal reported:
Wetherell, explaining his decision to let the case to move forward, said that while the school board reserves the power to remove books from the district for legitimate reasons, they cannot remove them because they do not align with their moral beliefs. While the school library should be diverse in the “marketplace of ideas,” it is ultimately up to the parents to decide what is appropriate for their own family, he said. …
Wetherell said that the only books that should be restricted from student access while they undergo review are those that have sexual content, and the school district has not been following its own policies. The rest of the books that aren’t pornographic but fall into the “woke” category, should still be available for students to check out while they undergo their evaluation, he said.
The newspaper said that Escambia County Public Schools and the Escambia County School Board have 28 days to file a response to the judge’s ruling.
The lawsuit claimed that the book removals also violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause because books about racial minorities and LGBTQ+ people were disproportionately targeted. But the judge ruled that the 14th Amendment claim was not applicable, according to PEN America.
According to the lawsuit, Florida became the epicenter of book removal efforts, with Escambia County the most active.The Pensacola News Journal wrote that the lawsuit regularly mentioned the name of an Escambia County teacher, Vicki Baggett, who was responsible for the first 100-plus book challenges in 2022. The newspaper wrote:
Baggett’s critiques are quoted in the lawsuit, including her requests for books to be removed … on the basis of their “LGBTQ introduction,” “LGBTQ agenda,” “LGBTQ content” and “anti-whiteness.” In several instances, the board has sided with her recommendation in removing the book.
In its motion seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, the Escambia County School Board argued that it has the authority to decide which books should be allowed in schools and that its actions were shielded by a new state law, HB 1069. That 2023 bill, dubbed the “Don’t Say Period” law, with its restrictions on K-12 sexual and health education, represented an expansion of the 2022 “Don’t Say Gay Law.”
At the hearing, Wetherell said the removed books in effect end up in “purgatory” because the school board’s policy does not set any time frame for the review process, the Pensacola News Journal reported. The Messenger News wrote:
While books were taken away over the break last summer, many libraries were kept closed while the review took place at the start of the school year. So far, fewer than 100 texts have been reviewed.
The Florida Freedom to Read Project, which gained access to the district’s book review lists as it fought the Gov. Ron DeSantis-backed legislation, acknowledged the books may return, but said students will have missed out on valuable time with access to them.
“When books are pulled or rejected in the thousands over fear of compliance with vague law, we are using a “guilty until proven innocent” mentality that deprives hundreds of thousands of students full access to the books they had available prior to this law being enacted,” the group said on X.
And here’s a video from one of the parents involved in the lawsuit:
Another plaintiff, George M. Johnson, the author of “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” a personal memoir about growing up as a Black gay teenager, showed up for Wednesday’s court hearing.
The Los Angeles Times reported that a similar lawsuit has been filed recently in Iowa against a state law that includes book-banning provisions. The newspaper wrote:
Two weeks ago, U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher granted an injunction against Iowa Senate File 496 and its book-banning provisions — just days before penalties for violating the law were planned to take effect. Enacted in May 2023, SF 496 prohibits K-12 students from accessing books including any description of sex and forbids discussing or reading about gender identity or sexual orientation through sixth grade.
Penguin Random House, again citing 1st and 14th Amendment violations, filed a lawsuit Nov. 30 — alongside the Iowa State Education Assn., critically acclaimed authors Laurie Halse Anderson, John Green, Malinda Lo and Jodi Picoult as well as a high school student, her parent and three educators.
Nihar Malaviya, chief executive at Penguin Random House said: “We know that not every book we publish will be for every reader, but we must protect the right for all Americans, including students, parents, caregivers, teachers, and librarians, to have equitable access to books and to continue to decide what they read,” the LA Times reported.
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