Florida “Freedom to Read” Case Moves Forward

On January 10, Judge T. Kent Wetherell denied a motion by the Escambia County School Board to dismiss the First Amendment case.

A federal lawsuit over book bans in Escambia County, Fla., filed by PEN America, Penguin Random House, and a group of authors and parents, will move forward, reports Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly executive editor.

The lawsuit was first filed on May 16 in the Northern district of Florida in Pensacola and alleges that administrators and school board members in the Escambia County School District are in violation of the First Amendment as well as the 14th Amendment—the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution—because books singled out for removal are “disproportionately by non-white and/or LGBTQ+ authors” and often address “themes or topics” related to race or the LGBTQ community.

Following a lengthy hearing on Wednesday, January 10, in his Pensacola courtroom, Judge T. Kent Wetherell denied a motion filed by lawyers for the Escambia County School Board to dismiss the case.

While a written order has not yet been released, Wetherell did reject the plaintiffs’ claims under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause in his decision from the bench.

However, the judge found that plaintiffs do have standing under the First Amendment.

“Lawyers for the school board also noted that the suit could put school officials on a collision course with a recently enacted Florida Law, HB 1069,” Albanese tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally.

That legislation grants school boards full authority over “the content of all instructional materials and any other materials used in a classroom, made available in a school or classroom library, or included on a reading list.”

Every Friday, CCC’s “Velocity of Content” features the editors and reporters of Publishers Weekly for an early look at what news publishers, editors, authors, agents, and librarians will be talking about when they return to work on Monday.