MJP –
The school district that is being sued is launching a contentious defense that might shake up First Amendment laws across the country; this is just the latest legal battle over book bans in Florida, and it’s got big consequences.
This case takes place in Nassau, the county in the far northeastern part of Florida, which is sandwiched between Jacksonville and Georgia.
County school district officials are claiming that their actions to remove and restrict books from school libraries are permitted by the First Amendment, which they are accused of breaching in a federal lawsuit they are facing.
“(Our) actions constitute government speech for which no First Amendment protections attach,” they stated in a court filing this past Friday.
This is an argument that other school districts and the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis have used on numerous occasions in court, arguing that governments have the right to remove any book from school libraries without justifying.
Some have even gone so far as to call it authoritarianism, which has alarmed many who are fighting for the First Amendment. Its reappearance in a different case increases the likelihood that a judge will accept the argument, which could lead to its advancement to higher courts, where it could establish a precedent with far-reaching effects.
U.S. District Judge Wendy Berger, an appointee of Trump’s, has taken up residence in the case.
Where is Nassau County at the moment?
The writers of the book that was deleted, together with kids and their parents from the school system, have taken legal action by filing a case in the United States System Court for the Middle District of Florida.
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“And Tango Makes Three,” penned by authors Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, recounts the real-life tale of a same-sex penguin pair housed in a zoo in New York City. Officials from the school system either restricted or withdrew the children’s picture book and 35 others after receiving “informal requests” from a local chapter of Citizens Defending Freedom, as stated in the lawsuit.
In an email sent to many of the officials, the group’s county executive director, Jack Knocke, expressed the group’s eagerness to collaborate in safeguarding the innocence of children in their schools. It was made public in the records of the court.
“Equip and empower American citizens to stand for and preserve freedom for themselves and future generations.” That is one of the goals stated on the chapter’s website. However, the court has labeled it “an anti-LGBTQIA+ advocacy group.”
“Some people will try to make us look bad because we’re trying to keep kids safe,” Knocke warned over the phone. “Our goal is to keep the children in the schools so they can learn and develop appropriately.”
There were allegations that the books violated state law and were inappropriate, according to the CDF chapter. Despite the district’s disapproval, “And Tango Makes Three” was removed from the school’s library due to “lack of circulation.”
The plaintiffs, represented by Selendy Gay PLLC and Kenny Nachwalter P.A., write that the District’s public school library collection includes thousands of books that predate Tango.
The defendants did not remove these books for weeding or lack of circulation because they were not challenged by CDF and because they do not espouse the positive LGBTQIA+ message that the defendants disfavor.
“They made that decision for a single, unconstitutional reason: their disagreement with the book’s content and viewpoint in violation of the Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights,” according to them.
“Almost Perfect,” which features LGBTQ themes and characters, and “Ghost Boys,” which addresses racism, were the only two titles removed from consideration owing to “lack of circulation” out of 36 that were impacted, as shown in the plaintiff’s court papers.
In addition, the plaintiffs claim that the school district broke the law by secretly deciding which books to remove and which to restrict, and then tried “to justify and conceal their unlawful conduct by creating a legally insufficient library material challenge policy and pointing to it as the basis for their removal and restriction of the 36 books.”
The school administrators of Nassau County, who were defended by the Steger Law Firm PLLC, disputed the claims and said that the plaintiffs lacked the legal authority to bring the lawsuit.
“There is no constitutional right to have one’s book remain on the shelves of a public school library, and the removal of said book likewise does not implicate any such constitutional rights,” they stated in the petition on Friday.
On top of that, the First Amendment does not guarantee anyone the right to use the resources of public school libraries. The plaintiffs cannot prove standing because they have not incurred any actual harm and no such rights exist.
Over the interim, Knocke mentioned that his organization has provided the school district with an additional set of books on which it is worried.
