Major Publishers File Lawsuit Against Book Bans in US Schools

America likes to think of itself as the land of the free, and Florida has always held “freedom” in high esteem. But under the Republican administration of Ron DeSantis, several laws have been passed in recent years to restrict constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. They have also led to an increasing number of books being removed from school libraries due to their “offensive content.” Six major publishers have filed a lawsuit against Florida school officials over these book bans.

A 2023 law requires that a book be removed from a school library within five days as a precautionary measure if a parent or even a member of the district considers the book inappropriate. In this context, “inappropriate” refers to books that address topics such as sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or race in a way that is not considered age-appropriate.

Teachers are severely punished

In their complaint, the publishers explain that they do not fundamentally oppose the law and general efforts to protect students from pornography. They argue, however, that the law invites arbitrary enforcement because of its vague wording. In fact, the number of book bans is increasing dramatically in Florida. According to the writers’ association Pen America, 3,135 books were banned from Florida libraries between July 2021 and December 2023. Censorship is not limited to Florida, however: while the Sunshine State leads the way in this regard, more than 4,300 books were banned in a total of 23 U.S. states in the span of six months.

To combat this wave of censorship, publishers are invoking not only freedom of expression, but also a Supreme Court ruling. In 1973, the Court ruled that to determine whether a work is pornographic or not, the work must be considered as a whole and not judged on isolated passages of the text. However, recent censorship procedures do not exactly respect this principle. In these cases, the school board concerned has the offending passage read aloud and removes the work from the library as a precautionary measure. It can take years before a final decision is made.

According to the plaintiffs, works of world literature by authors such as Toni Morrison, Gabriel García Márquez, Aldous Huxley, Leo Tolstoy, Kurt Vonnegut, Ernest Hemingway, and Alice Walker have also been censored at various times. Art Spiegelman’s famous graphic novel about the Holocaust, “Maus,” was also removed from a Tennessee library. All of these censored books can be easily found and purchased from online booksellers.

In the past two years, seven conservative states have passed laws imposing heavy fines and lengthy prison sentences on librarians and teachers who expose children to “harmful” books.

In Georgia, a teacher was fired for reading a book about gender identity to fifth graders. In Texas, a teacher was fired for reading Anne Frank’s diary to her fourth grade class.

Censors mainly target LGBTQ+ content

Such cases have a chilling effect on other teachers and school officials. They often preemptively “cleanse” their curricula and libraries of books that might get them into trouble. The complaint even cites schools that have closed their libraries entirely as a precaution. No work is safe from the guardians of virtue: in Utah, even the Bible was the subject of complaints last year because of allegedly violent and obscene passages.

School bullies are often the work of a small number of people. The Washington Post analyzed a thousand objections and concluded that 60% of the complaints came from the same eleven people.

The pornography and indoctrination charges primarily concern books with LGBTQ+ content. Other Florida laws prohibit discussing same-sex sexuality in elementary school classrooms or exposing minors to “sexual descriptions or narratives” in general. It also makes it a crime to read books with “suggestive” content to students. In this climate, teachers are often accused of sexualizing children with abusive intent (known as grooming).

Another point of contention is how African-American history is taught. In Florida, in particular, teachers are often accused of being too left-leaning and influenced by “critical race theory.” As a result, critics say they present the legacy of slavery and racism in a one-sided way, presenting whites as perpetrators and blacks as victims, which instills a sense of guilt in white students.

The freedom they mean

Governor Ron DeSantis is one of the main instigators of the book bans in Florida. He often talks about the “woke” indoctrination that is being rampant in schools. Pornographic and inappropriate materials are “being brought into our classrooms and libraries to sexualize our students,” he claims.

Following the publishers’ complaint, his team explained that the state Department of Education does not ban books and that the book ban allegations are a “hoax.” They argued that the law simply gives parents and citizens the ability to review and complain about their children’s school materials. For a long time, this type of conservative cultural politics contributed to DeSantis’ success in Florida. During the Republican primaries, he also used it to position himself as a presidential candidate. However, he ultimately had no chance against the front-runner, Trump.

In Florida, too, the resistance is growing. In addition to the complaints filed by major publishers—including industry giants like Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Harper Collins—there are other pending complaints from writers’ associations PEN America and the Authors Guild. Federal courts in other states, including Texas and Iowa, are currently considering similar complaints. Ironically, it is often conservatives like DeSantis who like to invoke the First Amendment right to free speech to fight political correctness. DeSantis, who titled his autobiography “The Courage to Be Free,” is now seen as an opponent of freedom himself.

The current controversy over “dangerous” books is part of a broader struggle over the notion of freedom, a typically American one, defended until now mainly by Republicans. But today, “freedom” has also become a central slogan of Kamala Harris’s election campaign.

For Democrats, liberty is all about protection from government interference in private matters: the right to abortion, the right to choose who to love or, in this case, what to read. They may well appeal to many conservative citizens who feel that paternalism in states like Florida goes too far.

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