Florida school district must return LGBTQ books to libraries after settlement

A school district in northeastern Florida must return three dozen books related to race and the LGBTQ community to school libraries as part of a settlement reached Thursday with authors, parents and students.

The Nassau County School Board removed 36 books last year after the titles were challenged by Citizens Defending Freedom, a conservative advocacy group. The books included “And Tango Makes Three,” a popular children’s book by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson based on the true story of two male penguins who raised a chick together at New York’s Central Park Zoo, as well as classics such as “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison and “Crank” by Ellen Hopkins.

“This settlement — a watershed moment in the ongoing battle against book censorship in the United States — significantly restores access to important works that were unlawfully removed from the shelves of Nassau County, Florida’s public school libraries,” said Lauren Zimmerman, an attorney with the New York law firm Selendy Gay, which sued the district on behalf of Parnell and Richardson, along with Florida parents Sara Moerman, Toby Lentz and their children. 

“Students will once again have access to books from well-known and highly-lauded authors representing a broad range of viewpoints and ideas,” Zimmerman added in a statement. 

The Nassau County School Board did not immediately return a request for comment.

The suit was among several that challenged the removal of books by school districts across Florida under a law signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis that made it easier for community members to challenge books they found to be inappropriate in school libraries. The law, which has since been rolled back, was part of a handful of bills that restricted how schools can provide information about race and the LGBTQ community.

The plaintiffs filed their suit in May, arguing that the school board used “unlawful censorship” to remove “the children’s book behind closed doors and without community involvement or comment.” The suit also argued that the district violated the state’s  “Sunshine Law” by removing the books without a public meeting. 

“They have a statutory right to get the opportunity to attend and comment on these types of decisions, the removal of books or the restriction of books, and they weren’t given that opportunity here,” Zimmerman told First Coast News at the time. “All 36 books, including ‘Tango’, were removed without any public hearing whatsoever, which means there wasn’t any community commentary on, you know, whether this was the appropriate decision.”

From July 2021 through December 2023, Florida had the highest number of book-ban cases in the U.S., at 3,135 bans across 11 school districts, according to an April report from PEN America, a nonprofit that works to protect free expression and has also filed a lawsuit against another Florida county over book bans. 

Books with LGBTQ characters and themes made up 36% of all book bans from 2021 to 2023, while books about race and racism and books with characters of color made up 37% of all bans, PEN America found. Book ban numbers from the full 2023-2024 school year have not yet been released but by midway through that school year, according to PEN America, book bans had already surpassed the previous school year’s total.

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