PEN America, Penguin Random House sue Florida school district over book bans | AP News
By: ANTHONY IZAGUIRRE (AP NEWS)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
By ANTHONY IZAGUIRREMay 17, 2023 GMT1 of 2FILE - Amanda Darrow, director of youth, family and education programs at the Utah Pride Center, poses with books, including "The Bluest Eye," by Toni Morrison, that have been the subject of complaints from parents, on Dec. 16, 2021, in Salt Lake City. Publisher Penguin Random House and PEN America sued a Florida school district Wednesday, May 17, 2023, over its removal of books about race and LGBTQ+ identities, the latest opposition to a policy central to Gov. Ron DeSantis' agenda as he prepares to run for president. Among the removed books are "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison, "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky, "The Nowhere Girls" by Amy Reed and "Lucky" by Alice Sebold. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)1 of 2FILE - Amanda Darrow, director of youth, family and education programs at the Utah Pride Center, poses with books, including "The Bluest Eye," by Toni Morrison, that have been the subject of complaints from parents, on Dec. 16, 2021, in Salt Lake City. Publisher Penguin Random House and PEN America sued a Florida school district Wednesday, May 17, 2023, over its removal of books about race and LGBTQ+ identities, the latest opposition to a policy central to Gov. Ron DeSantis' agenda as he prepares to run for president. Among the removed books are "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison, "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky, "The Nowhere Girls" by Amy Reed and "Lucky" by Alice Sebold. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Writers' group PEN America and publisher Penguin Random House sued a Florida school district Wednesday over its removal of books about race and LGBTQ+ identities, the latest opposition to a policy central to Gov. Ron DeSantis' agenda as he prepares to run for president.
The federal lawsuit alleges the Escambia County School District and its School Board are violating the First Amendment through the removal of 10 books from library shelves.
The case does not name DeSantis as a defendant though the Republican governor has championed policies that allow the censorship and challenging of books based on whether they are appropriate for children in schools, causing national uproar.
DeSantis, who is expected to announce his presidential candidacy in the coming days, has leaned heavily into cultural divides on race, sexual orientation and gender as he moves to win support from conservative voters who decide Republican primary elections.
"Books have the capacity to change lives for the better, and students in particular deserve equitable access to a wide range of perspectives. Censorship, in the form of book bans like those enacted by Escambia County, are a direct threat to democracy and our Constitutional rights," Nihar Malaviya, CEO of Penguin Random House, said in a statement.
Escambia County school officials did not immediately return a request for comment.
PEN America, which has tracked school book bans, advocates for literary freedoms and has a membership of 7,500 writing professionals, including authors whose books have been removed or restricted in the school district. Penguin Random House, a massive publisher, has published books that have been removed or restricted by the district.
The lawsuit says the removals stem from objections from one language arts teacher in the county, and in each case the school board voted to remove the books over recommendations from a district review committee that deemed them educationally suitable.
The teacher's formal objections to the books appear to draw on materials compiled by a website that creates reports on books it deems ideologically unsuitable for children, according to the lawsuit.
In one example cited in the lawsuit, the teacher admitted she had never heard of the book "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky but filed an objection form to the novel that contained specific excerpts and phrasing from the book ban website.
Among the other removed books are "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison, "The Nowhere Girls" by Amy Reed and "Lucky" by Alice Sebold. The lawsuit said more than 150 additional books are under review by the school board.
"In Escambia County, state censors are spiriting books off shelves in a deliberate attempt to suppress diverse voices. In a nation built on free speech, this cannot stand," said Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America. "The law demands that the Escambia County School District put removed or restricted books back on library shelves where they belong."
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Lawsuits are piling up on some of DeSantis laws.
This was what I was talking about in your other article.
I have a feeling this is the first of the lawsuits by them against school districts.
Of course it is. One must suffer something to have standing to sue so it will take a bit of time.
I see a number of social crises on the state's horizon for that inept little maga dictator.
if you want to mortally wound christo-fascists, aim for their wallets...
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P EN America, which has tracked school book bans,
Lol
This article is about Escambia County District so did the Daily Signal (the newspaper arm of the Heritage Foundation) investigate this school district to see if the books were truly removed?
Just pointing out what a joke Pen America is. Trust them at your peril.
A joke in your opinion, can you say the same about Random House and Penguin?
So they haven't investigated Escambia County District and the books that were removed. So why would I trust Daily Signal when they haven't investigated Escambia?
They should also investigate Martin Country in Florida who recently removed around 30 books of three different authors, one by the way was a Pulitzer Prize winner. All on the complaint of one woman who is a Moms for Liberty activist, Julie Marshall.
... according to the warped disciples of the bigoted heritage foundation.
It's not censorship to keep age-inappropriate books and materials out of the hands of minor children.
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Parents have every right to have a say so in what their kids are taught and the materials used
What they don't have a right to do is make decisions for all children and their parents, you should understand that.
“…you should understand that.”
And everyone should embrace that, lest we lose sight of our most treasured freedoms.
's not censorship to keep age-inappropriate books and materials out of the hands of minor children
Apparently, all books ever published have to kept in every library forever, and every book ever taught in a class has to remain on a syllabus forever or you are literally worse than Nazis. Curating material or evolving is illegal. Because schools have infinite resources of storage space and teaching time. Never mind if all these "banned books" are, of course, available everywhere if parents feel their kids would benefit from them .
Maybe DeSantis will hold another press conference and display the books he "banned" and have all the outlets that covered the story have to blur out the books because the content couldn't be broadcast. One of the best press conferences a politician ever had.
as long as all the fucking bibles get tossed on those bonfires first...
"According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, over 11 million kids in the United States live below the federal poverty line. That means that these children are growing up without access to basic necessities like food, shelter, and healthcare."
Their parents can barely afford food, shelter and healthcare, but some pretend like their parents can buy them books.
The worst poverty in America may be in the mentality of reactionary ideologues who want to defund public libraries and ban books.
And who decides that?
And the obvious and completely retarded result of letting "the parents decide" is that their kids will get to college, if they can even get in, and not recognize The David.
do they have a kid's bible without all that incest, pedophilia, rape, murder, sodomy, polygamy, adultery, and satanism?
Book banning and lawsuits.
Strange. When people try to defend freedoms like Choice, voting, equality ect., some people show up with weapons to intimidate those people, supporting the removal of those freedoms.
Stranger still is when people or groups actively engage in denying freedoms nobody ever shows up with weapons to show what The Second Amendment is really about.
that's exactly what the xtian nationalists want.
I know. Maybe Americans should make the choice.
I already have. they get the first move and I get the last.
Ditto.