Why the world’s largest publisher found a book-ban lawsuit in Florida ‘irresistible’
As school library book bans proliferate across the country, the resistance is becoming more organized. This week, a book publisher — the largest in the world — entered the fray. A lawyer for the publishing conglomerate Penguin Random House told The Times it was suing to stop “one of the most unsubtle attempts at viewpoint discrimination” ever seen.
Joined by free-speech advocacy group PEN America and several authors and parents, Penguin Random House filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the Escambia County School District and its school board, alleging they were violating the 1st Amendment by scrubbing library shelves of books based on a political or ideological disagreement with the ideas the books express.
They also allege a 14th Amendment violation citing the Equal Protection Clause, because the challenged books are disproportionately titles by nonwhite and/or LGBTQ+ authors and explore diverse stories and themes.
Penguin Random
House has had two of its books, “The Bluest
Eye” by Toni Morrison and “Push” by Sapphire, removed from some Escambia School District libraries. Numerous other books, including “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini and “Slaughterhouse-five” by Kurt Vonnegut, were targeted for removal pending a review process that the suit claims is essentially bogus.
“For many instances there’s not even the attempt at a pretext,” Dan Novack, Penguin Random House vice president and associate general counsel, told The Times. “These are being removed because there are depictions of [LGBTQ+] characters, there are depictions of racial identity, and that’s the reasons why they are being flagged by individuals for removal.
“And on top of that,” Novack continued, “when these titles do get flagged, what we’re seeing is that there is a committee that it’s supposed to go to that’s filled with actual members of the community, experts, etc., and they’re saying these are educationally appropriate. And then the school district is just overruling their own people. So it’s one of the most eye-popping fact patterns we’ve seen, and we think that when the court sees it, and certainly the public sees it, they’ll understand the strength of the case.”
According to the lawsuit, the majority of the book bans in the county, which encompasses Pensacola in the Florida panhandle, stem from a single Northview High School language arts teacher, Vicki Baggett, who embarked on a campaign to remove student access to 116 books, stating the books “should be evaluated based on explicit sexual content, graphic language, themes, vulgarity and political pushes.”
Among the challenged titles were “Drama” by Raina Telgemeier; quotes from the book relating to one character’s identification as gay were listed as the sole ground for removal, according to the lawsuit. Baggett also petitioned for the removal of Duchess Harris’ “Race and Policing in Modern America,” a nonfiction resource guide intended for middle-school readers, arguing it was anti-police and written “to race-bait.”
The suit also alleges that Baggett admitted she’d never heard of “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky, which she petitioned to remove, until learning it was frequently targeted elsewhere. Many of her objections seemed to be copied and pasted (including typos) directly from the website Book Looks, which was founded by a member of the Brevard County, Fla., chapter of the group Moms for Liberty.
After a panel consisting of Northview leadership, faculty, staff and one parent voted in favor of “Wallflower” remaining on library shelves, Baggett appealed the panel’s decision with a letter to the school district’s assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, copying members of the school board, the superintendent and Florida Gov. Ron Desantis.
The assistant superintendent responded by convening a “district review committee,” which echoed the initial panel’s vote in favor of “Wallflower.”
Baggett appealed the decision again, which led to the school board overruling the committee’s decision and removing “Wallflower” from school district libraries.
According to the lawsuit, the total number of books currently being challenged in the Escambia County School District has reached 197; 70% of these remained restricted as of Wednesday’s filing. Statewide, more than 500 books were permanently or temporarily removed between July 2021 and June 2022. And nationwide, according to PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans, 2,532 individual titles were banned during the same time period.