Six major publishers, including Penguin Random House and Hachette Book Group, have filed a lawsuit against Florida over the 2023 education bill, H.B. 1069, which limits access to certain books. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Orlando, names top state education officials and school board members in Volusia and Orange counties as defendants. The plaintiffs also include two students and their parents, alongside a list of bestselling authors.
The plaintiffs argue that the bill violates constitutional rights by unjustly restricting access to books. H.B. 1069 mandates that public school libraries review all books and instructional materials to ensure they do not contain pornographic content. The law also allows the public to challenge any materials they find objectionable. Several books by renowned authors like Maya Angelou and Ernest Hemingway have already been removed from school libraries under this law.
READ: Publishers and Authors Sue Florida Over Book Ban Law
In their case, the plaintiffs assert, “Authors have the right to communicate their ideas to students without undue interference from the government. Students have a corresponding right to receive those ideas. Publishers and educators connect authors to students. If the State of Florida dislikes an author’s idea, it can offer a competing message. It cannot suppress the disfavored message.”
Although Governor Ron DeSantis supported the original bill, he is not named in the lawsuit. Interestingly, he has expressed concerns that some challenges under the law have gone too far. In April, DeSantis signed an amendment to the state’s law, limiting the number of books and classroom materials that can be challenged in school districts. This amendment, effective July 1, restricts Florida residents without children in a school district to object to no more than one material per month and instructs the state’s Board of Education to adopt changes to implement this decision.
The lawsuit clarifies that the plaintiffs are not seeking to overturn the entire law, nor are they advocating for Florida school districts to carry obscene books. Instead, they aim to challenge parts of the law that prohibit content describing sexual conduct and the vague definition of the term “pornographic.”
The publishers are also involved in ongoing legal disputes in Escambia County, Florida, where books have been removed from school libraries under similar circumstances.