New Lawsuit Against Florida Public School Library Book Bans


I simply obtained phrase that the PEN American Heart in addition to a number of e-book authors, publishers, and oldsters of kids attending public faculty in Escambia County (Florida) have filed a lawsuit associated to public faculty library e-book bans. The criticism could be discovered on Shield Democracy’s web site right here.

The lawsuit alleges that the Escambia County Faculty District and Faculty Board eliminated and restricted books from public faculty libraries “primarily based on their disagreement with the concepts expressed in these books.” It additional alleges that the Faculty District has sided with “a challenger expressing overtly discriminatory bases for problem, overruling the suggestions of overview committees on the faculty and district ranges” and that “[t]hese restrictions and removals have disproportionately focused books by or about individuals of colour and/or LGBTQ individuals, and have prescribed an orthodoxy of opinion that violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments.”

One of many banned books is the award-winning And Tango Makes Three, an image e-book depicting the true story of two male penguins on the Central Park Zoo who raised a child penguin named Tango for whom the mom could not care. The e-book’s challenger efficiently asserted when arguing for removing that the e-book served an “LGBTQ agenda utilizing penguins.”

The criticism at bar alleges that the e-book bans represent viewpoint discrimination below the First Modification. It additionally argues that the First Modification proper to obtain info and concepts “is violated when a college district or faculty board removes or restricts entry to library books in a narrowly partisan or political method, and for the aim of denying college students entry to concepts with which the college district or faculty board disagrees” (inner citation marks and emphasis eliminated). Final, the criticism states that the “removing efforts at problem are primarily based on discriminatory animus in violation of the Equal Safety Clause of the Fourteenth Modification.”

The plaintiffs are represented by Shield Democracy and Ballard Spahr. Let’s examine if Florida can hold youngsters protected from co-parenting male penguins!