Image – Getty: Osarieme Eweka
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
See also:
Book Banning: PEN America Reports on School Libraries Pulling Titles
Penguin Random House Leads Amicus Brief in LGBTQ+ Books Case
Book Banning: A US Court Issues a Reversal in Texas
IPA on Reported Moscow Arrests: ‘The Risks Publishers Now Face in Russia’
Striking Down the ‘I Know It When I See It’ Standard
You may recall our story from August 10, in which Scott Travis for the South Florida Sun Sentinel was reporting that state censorship was prompting school systems to voluntarily remove from school libraries books deemed “pornographic or having sexually explicit passages that are inappropriate for minors.”
PEN America reported that as many as nine counties in the country’s third most populous state were performing a kind of self-censorship in removing books before the Gov. Ron DeSantis administration moved on those counties to require the removals.
PEN America points to a state action against Hillsborough County in May, threatening legal action if a school district “failed to remove books with sexual content.” Removal of books after that May incident are reported to have been carried out by Columbia, Escambia, Orange, Osceola, Pasco, Palm Beach, Pinellas, and St. Johns counties.
But as Steven Walker at the Sun Sentinel now has reported, “A federal judge on Wednesday (August 13) struck down provisions of a Florida law that’s been used to remove hundreds of books from public school libraries since it was enacted in 2023.”
The ruling, from Florida’s Middle District Court, on House Bill 1069, stops what was legislation allowing a “rapid removal of school library books” under what Penguin Random House—one of the publishers fighting the bill—calls “vague, overbroad criteria.
“The ruling effectively ends the book banning provisions within the law,” says Penguin Random House‘s legal group filing a lawsuit challenging Florida’s House Bill 1069, “affirming that books must be evaluated as a whole, not by isolated fragments.”
A year ago, in August 2024, Publishing Perspectives wrote on the lawsuit, the plaintiffs including:
- Penguin Random House
- Hachette Book Group
- HarperCollins Publishers
- Macmillan Publishers
- Simon & Schuster
- Sourcebooks
- Authors Guild
- Author Julia Alvarez
- Laurie Halse Anderson
- John Green
- Jodi Picoult
- Angie Thomas
- Two students
- Two parents
As Jacob Gershman at the Wall Street Journal wrote on the filing of the lawsuit last year, “The lawsuit says the law violates the First Amendment rights of publishers, authors, and students by motivating sweeping book bans.
“The plaintiffs aren’t challenging any specific book removals but are asking a federal judge to declare sections of Florida’s law unconstitutional.”
PRH’s Dan Novack: ‘We Are Elated’
Dan Novack, PRH vice-president and associate general counsel, has spoken on the court’s new ruling against Florida, saying, “We are elated that the federal court in Florida has upheld the First Amendment rights of students, educators, authors, and publishers.
Dan Novack
“The Court ruled that books may only be removed from school libraries if they lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value when considered as a whole.
“We are especially heartened that the court rejected the state’s dangerous claim that the First Amendment does not apply in school libraries. The court also struck down the state’s vague ‘I know it when I see it’ standard, reinforcing the essential role of librarians and educators in selecting books for students’ independent reading.
‘This is a sweeping victory for the right to read, and for every student’s freedom to think, learn, and explore ideas.”
Some area news media report that Novack also said that he expects the state of Florida to try appealing the decision.
More from Publishing Perspectives on censorship in the broader context is here, more on the freedom to publish and freedom of expression is here, more on the International Publishers Association is here, more on the freedom to read is here, and more on the United States book industry is here.
Publishing Perspectives is the International Publishers Association’s world media partner.
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