Major publishers sue Florida over ‘unconstitutional’ book ban law

A group of major book publishers sued the state of Florida over what they call an “unconstitutional” book ban law that allows challenges to books in school libraries. 

Six publishers — Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster, and Sourcebooks — along with The Authors Guild and some prominent book authors, filed the 94-page lawsuit Thursday in federal court in Orlando.

In the suit, they argued book bans have surged, in violation of the First Amendment, because of the passage of Florida’s 2023 education bill, H.B. 1069. The bill allows parents to try to remove materials from schools if they are seen as pornographic by the school boards. 

With the legislation’s passing last year, the plaintiffs argued Florida “has mandated that school districts impose a regime of strict censorship in school libraries.” They added that the law “requires school districts to remove library books without regard to their literary, artistic, political, scientific, or educational value when taken as a whole.” 

The complaint stated that hundreds of books have been banned, including “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens and “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank. 

“By so broadly regulating the display and availability of books that are constitutionally protected as to at least a significant number of students, these restrictions—as interpreted and enforced by the State of Florida—violate the First Amendment because they are impermissibly overbroad content-based restrictions,” they said in the lawsuit. 

Penguin Random House, the nation’s biggest publisher, penned a lawsuit late last year, alongside free-speech advocacy organization PEN America, against the Escambia County School Board because of the district’s utilization of the rule, according to the Tampa Bay Times. 

“This is a stunt,” Florida Department of Education spokesperson Sydney Booker said in an email to The Hill. “There are no books banned in Florida. Sexually explicit material and instruction are not suitable for schools.”

Updated Aug. 30 at 9:47 a.m. EDT