Top book publishers file suit challenging Florida’s ‘unconstitutional’ book ban law
WLRN Public Media | By Sergio R. Bustos
Published August 29, 2024 at 4:58 PM EDT
A coalition of major publishing houses, along with several prominent authors, students, and parents, filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court challenging the state’s controversial 2023 law, which has led to the widespread removal of books from public school libraries.
Top state education officials and school board members in Volusia and Orange counties in central Florida are named in the lawsuit brought by Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group and HarperCollins Publishers, and others, including bestselling authors Julia Alvarez, Laurie Halse Andersonm John Green, Jodi Picoult and Angie Thomas. Two students and their parents are also named as plaintiffs in the suit filed in federal court in Orlando.
They argue that provisions of H.B. 1069 violate constitutional rights by unjustly restricting access to books, including literary classics and modern works.
H.B. 1069, which requires the removal of any book deemed to contain “sexual conduct,” sparked the banning of hundreds of titles across Florida, including Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, the classic A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, and Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. Books by more contemporary authors, including Margaret Atwood, Judy Blume and Stephen King, also were targeted by the book ban law.
The law, in part, made the process of objecting to books and instructional materials easier — and came amid legal and political fights in Florida and other states about removing books from school shelves.
The measure requires the Department of Education to create forms for objecting to books, with the forms readily accessible on school districts’ websites. The law also set up a process for people who disagree with local decisions about objections to request appointment of special magistrates to review whether material violates state restrictions about sexually explicit or violent material.
PEN America, a group that fights book bans, found 3,362 instances of individual books banned, affecting 1,557 titles, in the past school year. Florida was among the states leading the nation in book bans.
“As publishers dedicated to protecting freedom of expression and the right to read, the rise in book bans across the country continues to demand our collective action,” wrote the publishers in a joint statement announcing the lawsuit. “Fighting unconstitutional legislation in Florida and across the country is an urgent priority.”
“We are unwavering in our support for educators, librarians, students, authors, readers — everyone deserves access to books and stories that show different perspectives and viewpoints,” the publishers wrote.
“Florida HB 1069’s complex and overbroad provisions have created chaos and turmoil across the state, resulting in thousands of historic and modern classics — works we are proud to publish — being unlawfully labeled obscene and removed from shelves,” said Dan Novack, Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Penguin Random House, in a statement.
“Students need access to books that reflect a wide range of human experiences to learn and grow,” he said. “It’s imperative for the education of our young people that teachers and librarians be allowed to use their professional expertise to match our authors’ books to the right reader at the right time in their life.”
Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild, warned that book bans have “a chilling effect on what authors write about, and they damage authors’ reputations by creating the false notion that there is something unseemly about their books.”
The lawsuit follows legal challenges in courts in other states, including a case filed by Penguin Random House and others against Iowa officials over similar book banning provisions.
The publishers are also involved in ongoing legal battles in Escambia County, Florida, where books were removed from school libraries under similar circumstances.