The nation’s largest book publishing company, Penguin Random House, and other publishing groups announced on Thursday, Aug. 29, that they are suing Florida over its state law prohibiting books with sexual content in school libraries. The plaintiffs claim that the lawsuit is to protect the First Amendment as fights over book bans are on the rise across the United States.
Florida’s law, enacted last year, requires schools to remove books that are deemed to contain sexual content. It also forces schools to remove a book immediately if a single parent or county resident complains that it depicts sexual conduct, leaving the book in limbo until the complaint is resolved.
The lawsuit states that Florida’s law is too broad and would, in theory, require the removal of the “Oxford English Dictionary” because of its definition of sex. Plaintiffs argue that the ambiguity invites overly broad interpretations and “chills protected speech.”
Florida’s Department of Education Communications Director Sydney Booker called the lawsuit a “stunt.”
“There are no banned books in Florida,” Booker said. “Sexually explicit material and instruction are not suitable for schools.”
However, the plaintiffs said that they do not want to keep obscene material in schools but take issue with removing books labeled “pornographic” when they should not be.
The suit cites literature like Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five,” Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.”
“These books are timeless classics, renowned for literary value,” the lawsuit said. “Many of them have won awards or are bestsellers. They have been on shelves of school libraries for years and they are not remotely obscene.”
The lawsuit comes after Florida banned more than 1,400 books during the 2022-23 school year. Texas enacted more than 620 book bans, the second most in the country.
