Florida school district reaches settlement to restore LGBTQ+ content to library shelves

SEATTLE - A school district in northeast Florida is now required to put back in libraries a collection of three dozen books containing LGBTQ+ content.

Students and parents of Nassau County reached an agreement with the school district after filling a lawsuit that challenged the state's decision to limit access to more than 30 titles containing LGBTQ+ content.

In recent months, Florida's state officials, and especially Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, have been pushing for legislation that restricts classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender, bans on gender-affirming care for minors and even pushed for the removal of titles that raise concerns about climate change.

Last month, six major publishers and several well-known authors filed a federal lawsuit in Orlando arguing that some provisions of DeSantis' book ban laws violate the First Amendment rights of publishers, authors and students. In 2023, DeSantis signed legislation that made it easier to challenge materials in school that could be considered obscene or pornographic.

Under the agreement reached by the suit, the School Board of Nassau County must restore access to three dozen titles including "And Tango Makes Three," a children's picture book based on a true story about two penguins that raised a chick together at New York's Central Park Zoo.

Other books removed in Nassau County included titles by Toni Morrison, Khaled Hosseini, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jodi Picoult and Alice Sebold.

"Students will once again have access to books from well-known and highly-lauded authors representing a broad range of viewpoints and ideas," Lauren Zimmerman, one of the plaintiffs' attorneys, said in a statement.

Publishers also raised concerns about the recent legislation passed by Florida, arguing that "fighting unconstitutional legislation in Florida and across the country is an urgent priority."

Despite reaching an agreement, this is another example of Florida's state agencies efforts to enforce anti-LGBTQ+ policies outside the legislature.

As reported by The Latin Times last month, Florida authorities removed LGBTQ+-related travel information from the state's website, and in January, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles quietly rescinded a policy allowing transgender people to obtain a driver's license corresponding with their gender identity.

The battle between Florida and the banning of books goes back to 2022, when DeSantis signed a bill to give parents a say in what books schools can and cannot have in their libraries, forcing all elementary schools to provide a searchable list of every book available in their libraries or used in instruction.

According to PEN America, a group that fights book bans, issued a report saying Florida is responsible for 72% of the books that have been pulled from the nation's schools in the first half of the current school year.

Besides his focus on banning LGBTQ+ content, DeSantis has also tried to do the same with titles that contain the word "climate change."

Back in May, DeSantis signed a bill that stripped the phrase from much of Florid law. The bill did not address public education nor the state's science standards, but House Bill SB 1645 altered the state's energy policy, removing the goal of recognizing and addressing "the potential of global climate change."

The state's Department of Education has previously rejected math and social studies textbooks over what they viewed as the inclusion of "woke" concepts. Critics say that, the latest demands to censor the phrase "climate change" from textbooks is another example of the DeSantis administration aligning Florida's public education system with conservative views.