News Service of Florida
In a key battleground in the larger debate about removing and restricting school books, plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Escambia County School Board asked a federal judge this week to order officials to return to the shelves seven titles that have been off-limits for over a year.
Lawyers for a parent who is a plaintiff also asked U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell to block the school board’s attorneys from taking the deposition of “J.N.,” a 7-year-old who just completed first grade.
Attorneys for authors, a publishing company, parents and a non-profit organization filed the lawsuit last year, contending the Escambia school board violated First Amendment and equal-protection rights in removing 10 books from school-library shelves and restricting access to more than 150 others.
Wetherell in January allowed the lawsuit to proceed, rejecting motions to dismiss First Amendment claims but dismissing plaintiffs’ equal-protection allegations.
The school board has argued it has authority to decide what books should be allowed and that a 2023 law (HB 1069) that set up a process for book challenges by members of the public helps shield it from the allegations.
In a motion for a preliminary injunction filed Monday, lawyers for the plaintiffs said Escambia officials had restricted 1,031 books under the county’s review process.
As of June 27, “some 178 challenged books remain restricted, although no decision has been made about the validity of the challenge,” according to the motion.
The motion said that, while the plaintiffs believe restrictions should be lifted on all books, the request for a preliminary injunction was limited to seven books that “have not been challenged for reasons that would require their restriction pending review under the (school) board’s own policies, and should be returned to the shelves immediately, while any review and resolution of the challenges proceeds.”
The board’s restrictions and removals “have disproportionately targeted books by or about people of color and/or LGBTQ people,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote.
Six of the seven books at issue include LGBTQ subject matter, while one tells the story of a Black teenager who is killed by a police officer and the impact on the teen’s friend, who witnessed the death.
In an example, a challenge to the book “Lady Midnight” flagged a passage that said: “‘Alexander Lightwood was Magnus’s boyfriend for over a decade. They could’ve gotten married under the new laws,” according to Monday’s motion.
The seven books at issue — which have been restricted for over a year — “were clearly challenged based on their positive portrayal of LGBTQ themes and other viewpoints” that challengers found objectionable, the motion said.