More than a dozen publishers and authors have filed a complaint against the state of Florida, alleging that the state’s ban on sexually explicit books in classrooms violates the 1st and 14th Amendments.
Some of those involved in the complaint include Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishing Group, Simon & Shuster, John Green, and others.
“If the State of Florida dislikes an author’s idea, it can offer a competing message,” the complaint says. “It cannot suppress the disfavored message.”
According to the complaint, the law “interferes with their ability to make their books available to readers and to distribute constitutionally protected books, and it chills those plaintiffs and others from engaging in protected activity.”
They also claimed the law’s description of “sexual conduct” was too vague.
Some of the law’s restrictions have “contributed to a culture of fear throughout Florida’s education communities,” the publishers and authors assert.
“Books that are required to be removed under the prohibitions on content that describes sexual conduct or content that is ‘pornographic’ as construed by the State Board are stigmatized, without regard for their value as a whole or their literary, artistic, historical, medical, or educational value as the Supreme Court requires,” the complaint adds.
House Bill 1069, which took effect last year, requires materials that “contain pornography or obscene depictions of sexual conduct” to be removed from classrooms.
