Florida school district and state ed leaders sued over restricting kids book on penguins

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A group of students alongside the authors of a children’s book centered on a penguin family with two fathers sued a central Florida school district and top state education officials Tuesday claiming that limiting its availability is a violation of free expression.

The lawsuit, one of several challenging Florida’s policies for launching local book objections, aims to require Lake County officials to make the book — “And Tango Makes Three” — available to all students.

But it also goes further by asking a federal court to declare that two education laws celebrated by state Republicans, the 2022 parental rights bill labeled “Don’t Say Gay” by opponents and its expansion passed earlier this year, are unconstitutional and should be overturned for spawning the “abhorrent and discriminatory practice of restricting access to books based on partisan” motivations.

“The book was restricted because of the content it contains—namely, the depiction of two same-sex penguins and their adoption of a penguin chick—and viewpoint it expresses—namely, that same-sex relationships and families with same-sex parents exist; that they can be happy, healthy, and loving; and that same-sex parents can adopt and raise healthy children,” attorneys representing the group wrote in the lawsuit.

Filled in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, the legal challenge is the latest against the DeSantis administration and local schools over access to books and the controversial parental rights laws passed in recent years. Books and lessons surrounding race and gender have been especially scrutinized in Florida, led by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican presidential contender who has railed on “woke” content and is pushing to remove books with graphic content from schools, taking aim at specific titles such as "Gender Queer: A Memoir" by Maia Kobabe, which depicts sex acts.

Lake County school officials restricted access to “Tango” in December for students below fourth grade, citing the state’s prohibition on teaching about sexual identity and gender orientation from kindergarten through third grade contained in the 2022 parental rights law. With those policies expanding to pre-K through eighth grade under a recently passed law, the lawsuit speculates that the picture book meant for children could soon face further restrictions.

The authors of “Tango” as well as the elementary students named in the lawsuit, or at least their parents, disagree with the school district’s assessment that the work broaches topics of sexual identity and gender orientation.

Instead, they argue that the book, along with 39 others currently restricted in Lake County, is being targeted for expressing a “message of inclusion and tolerance” or for acknowledging the “existence, of LGBTQ+ individuals—a viewpoint disfavored by” school leaders. The lawsuit also targets the state Board of Education, which crafts policies to enact state laws, and Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr.

Officials with Lake County Schools declined to comment on the pending lawsuit; the Florida Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The award-winning “Tango” tells the true story of Roy and Silo, two male chinstrap penguins at Central Park Zoo that incubated and hatched a baby chick named Tango. The book's authors at the heart of the case, Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, are a married same-sex couple who are raising a daughter together in New York. The other plaintiffs include students at four local elementary schools.

In fighting the district’s decision, the lawsuit noted that the book is without offensive language or sexually explicit content and stays true to a biological fact that same-sex behavior is “a nearly universal phenomenon in the animal kingdom.”

“The book is factually accurate, non-vulgar, and non-obscene,” attorneys for the group wrote in the lawsuit. “Tango had previously stood on school library shelves; and Tango was restricted for illegitimate, narrowly partisan and political reasons.”

Last month, a group of a free-speech organizations, parents, authors, and the publisher Penguin Random House sued school leaders in a different area, Escambia County, claiming that they have been too harsh in removing and restricting books from public school libraries.

That federal lawsuit, filed in Pensacola, targets how the West Florida school district is carrying out policies crafted by Republican lawmakers and the DeSantis administration — specifically how parents and others can raise objections about potentially inappropriate books.