The ongoing pushback against Ron DeSantis’ anti-woke hatefest continues in Florida. In the latest victory for the side of equality and sanity, an out-of-court settlement of a lawsuit brought by a group of authors, parents and students requires the Nassau County School District to return to school library shelves 36 books that the school board had banned. (Nassau County is in northeast Florida just above Duval County/Jacksonville and it shares its northern border with Georgia). The banned books related mostly to race and the LGBTQ+ community.
The Nassau County School Board removed 36 books last year after the titles were challenged by Citizens Defending Freedom, a conservative advocacy group. The books included “And Tango Makes Three,” a popular children’s book by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson based on the true story of two male penguins who raised a chick together at New York’s Central Park Zoo, as well as classics such as “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison and “Crank” by Ellen Hopkins.
“This settlement — a watershed moment in the ongoing battle against book censorship in the United States — significantly restores access to important works that were unlawfully removed from the shelves of Nassau County, Florida’s public school libraries,” said Lauren Zimmerman, an attorney with the New York law firm Selendy Gay, which sued the district on behalf of Parnell and Richardson, along with Florida parents Sara Moerman, Toby Lentz and their children.
“Students will once again have access to books from well-known and highly-lauded authors representing a broad range of viewpoints and ideas,” Zimmerman added in a statement.
Other books banned by the school district included “The Clan of the Cave Bear” by Jean Auel and “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini. Katie Blankenship with PEN America Florida, a nonprofit that works to protect free expression, had this to say about the settlement:
Today’s settlement is an historic moment in the fight to protect free speech and expression. This settlement sends a clear message to those who seek to ban and limit access to literature, art, and the freedom to read. PEN America is heartened by this settlement and we stand with the plaintiffs in this case in our continued commitment to ensuring free speech and expression by authors and other literary figures will not be stifled by those who seek to quiet diverse points of view simply because they dislike them.”
The book bans came about as a result of a law that was pushed and signed by DeSantis that made it easier for community members to challenge books they found to be inappropriate in school libraries. Not surprisingly, according to an April report from PEN America, from July 2021 through December 2023, Florida had the highest number of book-ban cases in the U.S., at 3,135 bans across 11 school districts. The report showed that books with LGBTQ characters and themes comprised 36% of those banned books, while books about race and racism and books with characters of color made up 37% of all banned books.
The plaintiffs filed their suit in May, arguing that the school board used “unlawful censorship” to remove “the children’s book behind closed doors and without community involvement or comment.” The suit also argued that the district violated the state’s “Sunshine Law” by removing the books without a public meeting.
As noted by Politico, school district claimed to have removed “And Tango Makes Three” due to “lack of circulation” and other works due to impermissible sexual content. But as part of the settlement agreement, school officials admitted that “Tango” contains no “obscene” material and is suitable for students of all ages. This book and the authors are also plaintiffs in a separate lawsuit challenging how the book was removed from school libraries in Escambia County, a case that remains ongoing.
Kudos to the Florida parents and students who were part of this lawsuit. This is just one more example of how Floridians are getting increasingly fed up with Ron DeSantis and his bogus, tiresome and hateful culture wars. IMHO, this is one reason the presidential and senate races in the state are close.
