Penguin Random House, others sues Florida school district over book bans

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A group of a free-speech organizations, parents, authors, and the publisher Penguin Random House on Wednesday sued school leaders in Escambia County claiming that they have been too harsh in removing and restricting books from public school libraries.

The 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. In the challenge, the group argues that school officials are disproportionally targeting books surrounding race and gender identity, violating First Amendment rights tied to viewpoint discrimination.

“Today, Escambia County seeks to bar books critics view as too 'woke.' In the 1970s, schools sought to bar Slaughterhouse-Five and books edited by Langston Hughes,” attorneys representing the group wrote in the lawsuit. “Tomorrow, it could be books about Christianity, the country’s founders, or war heroes. All of these removals run afoul of the First Amendment, which is rightly disinterested in the cause du jour."

Escambia has removed several Penguin Random House books, including The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and Push by Sapphire, according to the lawsuit. The school district has reviewed almost 200 titles.

The legal challenge is the latest attempt to undermine policies enacted by Florida’s GOP leaders that in the last two years have restricted how students can be taught about race and gender issues. State Republicans also passed legislation opening the door for local book challenges and recently expanded those rules to require schools to yank contested titles within five days being flagged, a shift opponents equate to “book banning.”

Florida teachers unions previously challenged the Florida Department of Education rules crafted to carry out book objections in administrative court.

In Escambia, the group is pushing for a judge to stop the school district from pulling works off local shelves, arguing that school leaders “are ordering books removed based on ideological objections to their contents or disagreement with their messages or themes.”

They contend that this is part of a larger trend in the country, taking aim at conservative parental rights group Moms for Liberty, which has spearheaded some efforts to review books. The lawsuit also scrutinizes a high school language arts teacher in Escambia who challenged dozens of the 197 books that have been under review in the county.

“Books are being ordered removed from libraries, or subject to restricted access within those libraries, based on an ideologically driven campaign to push certain ideas out of schools,” attorneys for the group wrote in the 59-page lawsuit.

Officials with Escambia County School District declined to comment on the pending legislation.

The confusion over what material is allowed in schools was further highlighted this week after the Florida Department of Education started investigating a fifth-grade teacher in Hernando County after she showed students the Disney movie “Strange World,” which features a gay cartoon character.

The lawsuit was filed the same day DeSantis enacted the law expanding Florida’s rules for book challenges.

Speaking at a private Christian school in Tampa, the Republican governor said there has been “concerted effort to try to do indoctrination” in libraries and books that are targeted at students up to the middle school grades.

“We never did this through all of human history until like what, two weeks ago?” DeSantis said. “Now this is something? They’re having third graders declare pronouns? We’re not doing the pronoun Olympics in Florida, it’s not happening here.”

The full slate of plaintiffs challenging Escambia’s book rules include PEN America, a nonprofit supporting free speech, several authors of challenged books, the publisher of books that have been the subject of book challenges, and parents of local students.