Penguin Random House sues Pensacola-area Florida school district over book bans

[essentialsaltes]

This week, a book publisher — the largest in the world — entered the fray. A lawyer for the publishing conglomerate Penguin Random House told The Times it was suing to stop “one of the most unsubtle attempts at viewpoint discrimination” ever seen.

“For many instances there’s not even the attempt at a pretext,” Dan Novack, Penguin Random House vice president and associate general counsel, told The Times. “These are being removed because there are depictions of [LGBTQ+] characters, there are depictions of racial identity, and that’s the reasons why they are being flagged by individuals for removal.

“And on top of that,” Novack continued, “when these titles do get flagged, what we’re seeing is that there is a committee that it’s supposed to go to that’s filled with actual members of the community, experts, etc., and they’re saying these are educationally appropriate. And then the school district is just overruling their own people. So it’s one of the most eye-popping fact patterns we’ve seen, and we think that when the court sees it, and certainly the public sees it, they’ll understand the strength of the case.”

According to the lawsuit, the majority of the book bans in the county, which encompasses Pensacola in the Florida panhandle, stem from a single Northview High School language arts teacher, Vicki Baggett, who embarked on an aggressive campaign to remove student access to 116 books, stating the books “should be evaluated based on explicit sexual content, graphic language, themes, vulgarity and political pushes.”

But apparently, the district is ignoring these evaluations and banning them anyway, at least with respect to one title detailed in the article. The story that community standards and local parents would determine suitability is just a sham in this county.

 

[rambot]

You're.....you're saying Republicans in Florida are discriminating against gay people AND they're trying to undermine public education?

Colour me the same colour I've always been!

 

[essentialsaltes]

According to the lawsuit, the majority of the book bans in [Escambia] county, which encompasses Pensacola in the Florida panhandle, stem from a single Northview High School language arts teacher, Vicki Baggett, who embarked on an aggressive campaign to remove student access to 116 books, stating the books “should be evaluated based on explicit sexual content, graphic language, themes, vulgarity and political pushes.”

But apparently, the district is ignoring these evaluations and banning them anyway, at least with respect to one title detailed in the article. The story that community standards and local parents would determine suitability is just a sham in this county.

The lives upended by Florida’s school book wars (gift article)​

In a fight over books, Escambia County saw thousands of titles removed, two lawsuits and jobs lost — including that of its superintendent​

In Escambia County, the controversy kicked off in 2022, when a high school language arts teacher, Vicki Baggett, challenged more than 100 books for what she called inappropriate content. The challenges would spur the removal or restriction of scores of titles, contribute to the superintendent’s termination and draw an ongoing federal lawsuit that seeks to restore the books and alleges district officials have violated students’ and teachers’ constitutional rights.

Over the course of a year, The Washington Post interviewed people on all sides of the debate in Escambia County schools to understand how the spike in book challenges affected how they live, learn and read.

Susan Ingram: The librarian who left

I loved being a librarian — until the challenges started coming in.

Against books that I adored — like “Monday’s Not Coming,” about a girl whose best friend disappears over the summer. “New Kid,” which tells what it’s like to be the only Black kid at a mostly White school. “When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball,” a picture book about a wonderful basketball player who overcame polio and racism.

The challenger said these books were wrong. Race-baiting. Anti-White. Woke. None of this made sense to me.

Heather Van Sickle: The teacher who feels unable to teach

In January, I was told to clear out my classroom library. I was supposed to box up the nearly 500 books I’d spent 15 years collecting, take them away and look through every single one to figure out if it might be a problem.

I know my books. There’s nothing bad in my books. There’s no spookiness or inappropriateness in my classroom library.
So I said no. I’m not doing that. [district partially relented]

Instead of taking away our books, they’re making media specialists catalogue every single book in every single teacher’s classroom library. Instead of working with children, our media specialists are inside classrooms looking at books for hours and hours and hours. And if they find a book that isn’t in our regular library, it has to go.

If a child approaches me with a book they would like to share with the class, I can’t read that book out loud. I have to get it approved by a media specialist first.

Gary Porter: The pastor determined to protect

There’s “And Tango Makes Three,” about the first penguin in the zoo to have two daddies. First of all, scientifically, that’s an impossibility. Secondly, I don’t think it’s helpful to the child. This is not the time and the place to bring that subject up. Whether you agree with the LGBTQ community or you don’t, to bring this in at a young age, that is when we start indoctrinating. It’s not honest.

And look, if you’ve got a young person in the school system and they’ve got parents who are two men, or two women, they should not feel threatened by the removal of this book.

Books are how things start — but they don’t stay there. They end up going someplace else.

Tim Smith: The superintendent who said no

[We put a process into place for objecting and reviewing and appealing books.]

But some people wanted me to pull the books. So did a board member. But the legal advice we’d been given was, “Superintendent, don’t do that.” It would be against the law for me to do that.

Then, in May, my evaluation came before the board. It was not positive. ... Immediately after that, there was a motion to terminate my employment. Then there was a 3-to-2 vote. I was fired.

Aleora Holman: The student who feels silenced

My friends and I like to hang out in the library before school. But this year, for a long time they wouldn’t let us into the library. They said it was closed: under construction. Then when it finally opened, we came back in and it wasn’t a library anymore.
All the shelves were covered in black paper. There were no books.

It doesn’t make sense to say “And Tango Makes Three” is age inappropriate. It’s penguins. It’s wholesome. It’s a childish way of introducing, you know, that there’s not just women and men that like each other — sometimes there are boys that like each other.

But it’s not just books. It’s more than that. They’re trying to make it seem inappropriate or unnatural just for gay people to exist.

 

[USincognito]

"Free state of Florida"

"No! Not like that!"