Penguin Random House and PEN America filed a lawsuit against a Florida school district for removing and restricting certain books in school libraries, claiming that the removals violate free speech and equal protection laws.
The federal lawsuit, filed against Escambia County School District in Pensacola on Wednesday, argues that the removal of books on topics such as LGBT identities, race, or racism is viewpoint discrimination and violates the First Amendment. Parents, students, and authors have joined the two groups in filing the lawsuit.
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"Today, Escambia County seeks to bar books critics view as too 'woke' ... Tomorrow, it could be books about Christianity, the country’s founders, or war heroes. All of these removals run afoul of the First Amendment," the lawsuit states.
The groups' lawsuit comes after Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and the state legislature have secured several legislative victories to restrict books or textbook material deemed inappropriate for students, part of a growing trend across schools in conservative states.
Many targets of Florida's education policies are topics dealing with critical race theory, gender ideology, and sexual orientation, with the lawsuit alleging that over 500 books have been banned or removed in one year.
The lawsuit claims school leaders removed or restricted 10 books “based on an ideologically driven campaign to push certain ideas out of schools," the filing states.
"The School District and the School Board are depriving students of access to a wide range of viewpoints, and depriving the authors of the removed and restricted books of the opportunity to engage with readers and disseminate their ideas to their intended audiences," the lawsuit states.
The removal or restriction of these books also violates the 14th Amendment, the lawsuit argues, as the district is singling out books written by LGBT authors or non-white authors or books that address race and gender identity.
"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," PEN America said in a press release.
The lawsuit asks the court to order the Escambia County School Board to restore books that were removed or restricted to the libraries' shelves.
The process began in May 2022, the lawsuit states, after a teacher filed a request to reconsider using "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky as educational material. Since then, the district has repeatedly accepted requests to remove similar titles.
Some of the books named in the lawsuit are “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” by Sarah Brannen, “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson, “Two Boys Kissing,” by David Levithan, “When Aidan Became a Brother,” and “Too Bright to See” by Kyle Lukoff, and “Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Pérez, the lawsuit states. The authors have joined the publishing group as plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
“The targeted book removals we are seeing in Escambia County are blatantly unconstitutional attempts to silence and stigmatize,” said Nadine Farid Johnson, managing director of PEN America Washington. “The government should not foster censorship by proxy, allowing one person to decide what ideas are out of bounds for all.”
The lawsuit also names Moms for Liberty, a group aimed at defending parental rights in several areas, including education, as one of the main groups spearheading the removals.
Tiffany Justice, co-founder of the organization, called the lawsuit a "political stunt to vilify parents advocating for the education and future of their children."
"They refuse to acknowledge that the reason books are being challenged in schools is because of their obscene, pornographic content because they know defending access to porn for 6-year-olds would be defending the indefensible," Justice said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. "Moms for Liberty will always stand with parents in their right to raise concerns about material in public schools. Parental rights do NOT stop at the classroom door."
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Restrictions of books in Florida started after DeSantis signed the Stop Woke Act. Since then, the administration has removed books containing graphic images and illustrations of sexual acts and moved to eliminate critical race theory teaching in schools.
In May, the Florida Department of Education adopted more than 60% of submitted social studies instructional material to be used in the state. This occurred after a monthslong separate battle with the College Board after the administration initially rejected an Advanced Placement course on African American Studies due to the inclusion of "ideological material."