Book Publishers Sue Florida, Alleging School Library Law Violates First Amendment
Major U.S. publishers are challenging a Florida law enacted last year that cracks down on sexual content in school libraries, alleging it has led to indiscriminate book-banning in violation of the First Amendment.
Florida’s statute, also known as HB 1069, requires districts to set up a process for a parent or resident of the county to contest school and classroom library materials that they believe contain pornographic or sexual content.
The country’s major publishing houses say Florida has unleashed a wave of censorship. The county school districts implementing the state law have eliminated hundreds of titles from their collections, according to the lawsuit, including, in some districts, the removal of literary classics such as Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five,” Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina.”
“Plaintiffs take issue with the removal of books under the guise of ‘pornography’ that are not remotely obscene,” the lawsuit states.
The complaint, filed in Orlando federal court Thursday, puts Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration at the center of a broadening legal clash over who gets to decide what books belong on library and classroom shelves.
