The country’s largest book publishers have filed a lawsuit against the Volusia County School Board as well as the Florida State Board of Education and the Orange County School Board, challenging the book removal provisions of HB 1069.
Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers and Simon & Schuster, known as The Big 5, are joined in the lawsuit by Sourcebooks; The Authors Guild; and critically acclaimed authors Julia Alvarez, Laurie Halse Anderson, John Green, Jodi Picoult and Angie Thomas. A Volusia County parent and student and an Orange County parent and student are also plaintiffs.
HB 1069 requires that each Florida school district adopt its own policy for objections to classroom materials. Through this process, district parents and county members may offer “evidence” that a book should be removed from classrooms, school libraries and/or reading lists if it is pornographic, depicting or describing sexual conduct, unsuitable for students or inappropriate for a student’s age group or grade level. Books must be removed within five school days of an objection and remain unavailable to students until the objection is resolved.
According to the complaint, plaintiffs are not challenging the idea that obscene books do not belong in school libraries. Rather, they’re claiming that books that are “not remotely obscene” are being removed “under the guise of ‘pornography’” and infringing on First Amendment rights of both readers and authors.
“We want people to be able to look at this law and its effects with clear eyes and understand which books stand to be lost,” said Dan Novack, vice president, associate general counsel at Penguin Random House.
“Penguin Random House, our author co-plaintiffs, our students, their parents, the other publishers, (the) Authors Guild, we all agree, no pornography. That’s a really easy standard that we can all agree to,” he added. “So when the state says ‘pornography,’ but they’re actually targeting our books, something is lost in translation, and we want the public, particularly Floridians, to understand what that means … and the complaint that we filed really painstakingly details the exact books that are getting caught in this fragment.”
The complaint notes that “timeless classics, renowned for their literary value,” have been removed from Florida school libraries, specifically referencing the following titles:
- Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”
- Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man.”
- Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
- Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
- Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.”
- Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye.”
- Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina.”
- Richard Wright’s “Native Son.”
- Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughter-House Five.”
- Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple.”
“Those are the books that I think most parents in Florida read at one point or another when they were the same age as their youngsters, their children,” said Novack. “People should have that touch point so they can make a more informed decision about what their legislators are choosing to label (as) pornography.”
Florida: ‘It’s probably the greatest hot spot in the country at the moment’
Novack told The News Journal he has been following “the rising tide of censorship” for over a year now, and when it comes to Florida, he said, “It’s probably the greatest hot spot in the country at the moment.”
According to a PEN America report, there were 3,362 instances of book banning in the 2022-23 school year across K-12 public schools nationwide, and more than 40% of those book bans occurred in a Florida school district.
Specifically, Volusia County Schools saw 89 book objections in the 2022-23 school year, and two books — ”Flamer,” by Mike Curato and “Relish: My Life in the Kitchen,” by Lucy Knisley — were removed, according to the Florida Department of Education.
“We want timeless and contemporary classics to be put back in libraries for students to be able to access them without undue restriction,” Novack said. “We want to get to a place where parents can assert to their educators and librarians what’s right for their kids and their kids alone and not have their desires override the prerogatives of everyone else in their communities. … We certainly don’t want legislators — any legislators — making decisions for what kids are reading.”
The Orange County School Board and the Volusia County School Board were included in this complaint for two reasons, according to Novack.
First, he said he wanted to ground the lawsuit in tangible “facts and experiences” rather than presenting “hypotheticals.”
“We don’t have to tell the court that these books are subject to being removed,” he said. “We can show them.”
Furthermore, the parent and student co-plaintiffs in the complaint are located in those districts.
Heidi Kellogg and her daughter, who is a senior at DeLand High School, live in Volusia County.
According to the complaint, during the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years, Kellogg’s daughter wanted to read Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” and Janet Gurtler’s “You Too? 25 Voices Share Their #MeToo Stories.” But she couldn’t find them in her classroom or school library because they had been removed.
“Heidi Kellogg wants (her daughter) R.K. to have access to these books and others like them so that she is presented with different viewpoints and experiences and therefore so she is better prepared to engage with a wide range of people,” the complaint said. “R.K. wants to have access to these books and others like them for the same reasons.”
When reached for comment, Kellogg told The News-Journal all media requests were going through Penguin Random House.
Defendants respond
Danielle Johnson, Volusia County Schools’ director of community information, as well as Board Chair Jamie Haynes and Vice-Chair Anita Burnette told The News-Journal that they are unable to comment on pending litigation.
Board member Ruben Colón said has not been served nor has he seen any of the paperwork, so he is unable to comment at this time.
Carl Persis and Jessie Thompson did not respond by time of publication.
Orange County Public Schools Administrator of Media Relations, Michael Ollendorff, told The News-Journal that the district has not been served with a complaint.
And Sydney Booker, the Florida Department of Education’s communications director, said in an email, “This is a stunt. There are no books banned in Florida. Sexually explicit material and instruction are not suitable for schools.”