Authors and students complain about driving bans in Florida

A group of students and the authors of a children’s book about a penguin family with two fathers sued a Florida school district and the state board of education on Tuesday, saying restricting access to the book in school libraries was unconstitutional.

The indictment alleges that the book was targeted for ideological reasons, due to new legislation that has led to a spike in book removals. State law, known to detractors as “Don’t Say Gay,” prohibits instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation. In an effort to follow the statute, the Lake County school district restricted access to 40 titles, the vast majority of which are books that deal with LGBTQ issues and themes.

The lawsuit by the authors of the picture book ‘And Tango Makes Three’ is seeking to make it available again and have the law declared unconstitutional.

Restrictions on books have become widespread in some parts of the country, particularly in places like Florida, which have adopted statewide rules specifying what is appropriate reading material for children. Books removed from libraries are often described as inappropriate or pornographic, but in practice many deal with racial themes or contain LGBTQ characters, according to free speech organizations and library groups.

“Our book is banned because Tango has two fathers,” says Justin Richardson, who co-wrote the book with his husband Peter Parnell.

The book is based on the true story of a pair of male penguins at the Central Park Zoo, Roy and Silo, who hatched and hatched a chick. Zookeepers named the chick Tango. The book’s authors – Parnell, a novelist, and Richardson, a psychiatrist – wrote the story after reading about the real Roy and Silo in a New York Times article, which described them as two chinstrap penguins who were “completely devoted to each other’. .”

The picture book, aimed at 4 to 8 year olds, has won several awards. It has also been banned or restricted in many counties across the United States after parents and residents objected to the book’s depiction of a family with same-sex parents.

The complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, said the Lake County school district “failed to provide a legitimate pedagogical reason for its decision.” The lawsuit further argued that “the book is factually accurate, not vulgar, and not obscene; “Tango” had previously been on the shelves of the school library; and ‘Tango’ was restricted for illegitimate, narrowly partisan and political reasons.”

Sherri Owens, a spokeswoman for the Lake County school district, said the district could not comment on pending litigation. “We have removed access to ‘And Tango Makes Three’ for our kindergarten through third grade students in accordance with Florida House Bill 1557, which at the time prohibited classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity for those grades,” said Ms. Owens . in an email.

Representatives from the state board of education did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Richardson said the book has been routinely challenged since it was published in 2005. But to his knowledge, he said, it was never permanently banned in a public school library until last December, when Lake County restricted access to the book to comply with state law.

The legislation originally applied to students in kindergarten through third grade, but a new law was passed last month that extended the restrictions from kindergarten through eighth grade. The complaint described the law as “vague and too broad”, and says the penalties are too harsh: teachers who knowingly violate the law could lose their teaching license.

The legislation, called the Parental Rights in Education Act, was signed into law last year by Governor Ron DeSantis, who described it as a tool to help parents stay on top of what their children are learning in the classroom.

“Parents have every right to be informed about services offered to their child at school,” he said in a statement when he signed the bill, “and should be protected from schools that use classroom instruction to educate their children from the age of five. sexualize.”

In an interview, Richardson said that “Tango” is no less age-appropriate than Robert McCloskey’s classic children’s book “Make Way for Ducklings,” in which a female duck and male duck search for a nice place in Boston to breed.

“Both show waterfowl becoming parents and caring for their young,” Richardson said. “There is no sexual implication or language in it, but only one is prohibited.”

The lawsuit was also filed on behalf of six Lake County students, including an up-and-coming grade school senior who attends a district public school who, according to the complaint, wants to read “Tango” because of his fascination with animals.

The suit alleges that students’ First Amendment right to receive information was violated, that the reputation of the authors was damaged by the suggestion that the book contains “sexually or age-inappropriate material that deserves to be banned” and that the indemnification of the authors’ speech rights have been violated.

“Whatever one believes about the value of respecting families with two mothers or two fathers,” Richardson said, “there is no basis for any claim that it is harmful or inappropriate for children at any age to learn that we to exist.”

In recent years, there have been increasing attempts to remove books in the United States. The movement has been bolstered by a growing network of conservative groups seeking to remove books that often address race, gender, and sexual orientation, and new state laws that, in many cases, make it easier to remove books from schools and libraries.

The Florida lawsuit is the latest move by literary groups, authors and parents who are pushing back and seeking to overturn book bans through court and legislation.

Illinois last week became the first state in the country to try to ban book banning, passing a law directing public libraries to adopt policies that prohibit them from removing books because of “partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

Earlier this month, a group of librarians, booksellers and publishers filed a lawsuit to prevent a new law targeting libraries and booksellers in Arkansas from taking effect. The lawsuit argued that the law, which requires any material that could be “harmful” to minors to be locked in a separate “adults only” room, is unconstitutional and could send booksellers and librarians to jail.

The Association of American Publishers and several major publishing companies recently filed a lawsuit in Llano, Texas, in support of a group of residents suing the county and library officials over the removal of books, including books on LGBTQ issues and race, including ” Caste’, by Isabel Wilkerson.

And last month in Florida, the free speech organization PEN America and the nation’s largest book publisher, Penguin Random House, sued the Escambia County school district and school board for removing books written by non-white and LGBTQ authors and dealt with themes of race, racism, gender and sexuality.

Florida has become an epicenter in the battle over what constitutes appropriate reading material for students. After the state passed a law requiring trained media specialists to evaluate every book in school to ensure it is age appropriate and free of “pornographic” content, some schools emptied their library shelves or covered them while they were rushed to check all titles.

In the “Tango” lawsuit, the plaintiffs are seeking to restore access to the book and are also seeking “a permanent injunction prohibiting the state’s defendants” from enforcing the new legislation.

“It allows and frankly encourages discrimination based on views, which is exactly what happened in its application,” said Faith E. Gay, an attorney at Selendy Gay Elsberg, the law firm representing the plaintiffs. the law. “Nothing is more exaggerated than sweeping up a book like ‘Tango’.”