Settlement In Florida Book Ban Lawsuit Means A Bunch Of Books Are Headed Back To School Libraries

Free Speech

from the unburning-books dept

Florida’s legislative antipathy towards free speech and general overall bigotry has generated plenty of bad laws and plenty of fully justified lawsuits. Earlier this month, the state’s quasi-book bans became the defendant in a federal lawsuit filed by multiple big-name publishers. But that was just the latest lawsuit, and the first to actually sue the state itself.

Plenty of other litigation is underway, targeting individual counties that have removed books from schools due to book challenges (over-)enabled by the state’s anti-speech laws. But there’s finally a little bit of good news to report. A lawsuit filed on behalf of two authors and two parents against Nassau County and its school board has resulted in a win for the plaintiffs. As Politico reports, lots of books that should have been removed under the (extremely loose) standards of the law are being placed back on the shelves of school libraries.

A northeast Florida school district this week agreed to restore 36 books that were challenged and previously pulled from campus libraries in a settlement of a federal lawsuit fighting how local officials carried out the state’s policies for shielding students from obscene content.

The settlement reached by Nassau County school officials and a group of parents, students and the authors of the removed children’s book “And Tango Makes Three” marks a significant twist in the ongoing legal battles surrounding Florida’s K-12 book restrictions, which have been derided as “book bans” by opponents. Under the agreement, that book and others such as the “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison and the “The Clan of the Cave Bear” by Jean Auel will once again be available to students after being removed last year.

None of these fit the legal standards for obscenity. If they did, they would have been removed under existing obscenity laws, rather than only recently removed because some bigoted jackasses, enabled by the new law, applied the pressure needed to remove content they don’t like.

Nope, this is just codified hatred that allows people to decide no one should have access to books they don’t personally care for. The dumbest part of this is probably the removal of “And Tango Makes Three,” which contains nothing even remotely resembling “obscene” material. This is from law firm Selendy Gay’s statement on the lawsuit settlement:

Significantly, the Board acknowledges in the settlement that Tango has pedagogical value, is appropriate for students of all ages, and contains no “obscene” material—facts that another Florida School Board—in Escambia County—is still contesting. The Board’s acknowledgement makes good sense: since its publication in 2005, Tango has been a highly awarded children’s book and has been lauded by educators and childhood development experts. Tango, which tells the true story of a same sex penguin couple who form a lasting pair bond and together adopt, hatch, and raise a happy and healthy chick, conveys important themes about family responsibility, adoption, LGBTQIA+ families, and natural science to which all students should have access.

Just the same old bigotry, but with a new law to abuse. No one contesting this book truly believed the material was “obscene.” They just don’t believe any student of any age should have access to a book that contains a positive depiction of a same-sex relationship.

And it’s just blatant racism driving some of the other book removals:

These 35 [challenged] books include significant works by Toni Morrison, Jonathan Safran Foer, Alice Sebold, Jodi Picoult and Erika Sanchez, which address racism in America, as well as the life experiences of immigrants, first-generation Americans, trans Americans and other underrepresented communities and individuals.

It’s also the same old bigots. The statement from the law firm points out that all 35 of the books removed were challenged by a of collective censorial asshats calling themselves “Citizens Defending Freedom.” Of course, there’s little about the group that indicates any actual desire to defend freedoms.

Citizens Defending Freedom (CDF) is the latest organization to establish a spoke-and-wheel structure to centrally manage local politicking on a range of hot button conservative issues. Its promise to “PROVIDE materials for home school families” is what first drew my attention, but CDF also claims that chapters in 100 counties will address corruption, school curricula, and “breaches of constitutional liberty.” It’s at 20 active chapters, so it’s got a way to go.

Nevertheless, the organization — just a couple of years old at this point — already takes credit for Nueces County, TX ending its sex education classes, Miami-Dade County introducing a Day of Prayer in public schools, and Lake Wales, FL for creating “Responsible Fatherhood Month.” Its chief opponents, not surprisingly, seem to be the NAACP, George Soros, and Walt Disney.

Yes, nothing says “defending freedom” like removing books from school libraries and forcing public schools to host days of prayer. Or, you know, implicitly threatening Nassau County school officials with arrest for agreeing to return these books to school libraries, as CDF does in its statement in response to the lawsuit settlement:

In response to this settlement, CDF has also made the Nassau County Sheriff aware, highlighting the district’s own admission of the presence of obscene materials in schools and shared the district’s own findings as evidence that they are distributing materials in violation of Florida’s child obscenity laws. “By their own words, the Nassau School District has determined these books violate state law. Yet, rather than take corrective action, they’ve chosen to put them back in the hands of our children. We intend to hold them accountable,” said Sarah Calamunci, CDF Florida State Director.  

Keep crying, haters. People who actually care about freedom will continue to combat efforts like these, as well as the unconstitutional laws that enable them. Here’s wishing you loss after loss after loss in the coming months, as federal judges (for the most part) continue to recognize these efforts for what they are: government-enabled censorship of views those in power don’t agree with.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, book ban, censorship, florida, free speech, justin richardson, lawsuit, peter parnell, sara moerman, toby lentz
Companies: selendy gay