Florida has appealed a federal judge’s ruling that said a key part of a 2023 law that led to books being removed from school library shelves is “overbroad and unconstitutional.”
Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office, representing members of the State Board of Education, filed a notice Wednesday that is a first step in appealing U.S. District Judge Carlos Mendoza’s ruling to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
As is common, the notice did not detail arguments the state will make at the Atlanta-based appeals court. Mendoza on Aug. 13 issued a 50-page decision that sided with a group of publishers, authors and parents in the First Amendment lawsuit filed last year. Mendoza focused primarily on part of the law that seeks to prevent the availability of reading material that “describes sexual conduct.”
The Orlando-based judge wrote that the law “does not evaluate the work to determine if it has any holistic value” and “does not specify what level of detail ‘describes sexual conduct.’” The law set up a process in which parents could object to reading material that is “pornographic” or “depicts or describes sexual conduct.” It required books that received such objections to be removed within five days and to remain unavailable until the objections were resolved.
In fighting the lawsuit, the state’s attorneys argued, in part, that the selection of library books is “government speech” and not subject to the First Amendment. But Mendoza rejected that argument, saying “the removal of library books without consideration of their overall value cannot be expressive activity amounting to government speech.” In addition to the State Board of Education, the school boards in Orange and Volusia counties are defendants in the case. The lawsuit was filed amid controversies in many areas of Florida about decisions by school districts to remove books from library shelves or restrict access.
–News Service of Florida
Deborah Coffey says
The Fascists in Florida will never be happy until they control every single aspect of our lives, in essence putting the oligarchs that keep financing their campaigns in charge of policy that makes them richer and “we the people” poorer. For all Fascists, the best way to remain in power is to prevent truth in all types of education and by halting the freedom to learn anything except what they want you know. Byron Donalds will keep this trend going and will make it even worse.
Bo Peep says
It was never a book ban. Anyone can still buy and read any book they want. The intention was to stop the lefty weirdos from giving books to other people’s children at school that their parents didn’t want them to read. Many of the books contained age inappropriate material that younger children should not be hearing about from anyone other than their parents. Any parent can ask that a book be placed on the not on the school shelf list. Social engineering for the acceptance of weird should not be given to children behind the backs of their parents.
Skibum says
Throughout history, I don’t believe those who were banning books were against books per se. Many of them loved reading just as much as you or I enjoy it. Their objection was against knowledge. They recognized then, as Florida’s governor and gerrymandered legislature knows full well, that knowledge is power.
They also realized if you allow the citizens to obtain too much knowledge, the more power they may have to overturn unconstitutional laws or even to get rid of corrupt politicians. Once citizens become more knowledgeable about equality, about power and how it corrupts, the power of the masses becomes a force to be reconned with, maybe even an insurmountable force that would bring powerful, corrupt politicians down. Book bans are just one piece of a larger effort by extremists to assert absolute control over an entire population.
Those who have built their political fortunes on extremist policies, taking rights away from its citizens, for them there is only one way to go, and that is to try to take even more rights away from people. They are scared enough to think that maybe, if they can prevent people from accessing books the corrupt and powerful people in charge don’t like, they might be able to better control the population by controlling their thoughts, censoring any thoughts, any behavior, and any movement of the people toward that which corrupt people want to eliminate.
Once corrupt politicians are successful in controlling thoughts, controlling the availability of knowledge by banning books, then the next logical step is to eliminate the people themselves who corrupt officials think have been influenced by the banned material.
You only have to look at what the FL governor and legislature has done to this state’s citizens recently. After implementing book bans in schools and libraries across the state, they then set out to target those who teach. Tenured professors in some of the state’s higher education institutions were either fired, not allowed to obtain tenure, or were forced to compromise their integrity by agreeing to teach only state approved course materials that were heavily scrutinized and whitewashed of anything the corrupt politicians thought pertained to “DEI”, “inclusion”, “diversity”, “racial justice”, “LGBT”, etc.
State censors poured through lesson materials, textbooks, even monitored class presentations to insure teachers and professors towed the line. One state college in particular had an entire upper echelon of professors and administrators replaced with government sycophants, and the focus of instruction from that time forward forever changed the openness and educational freedom of that higher education institution.
It was forbotten by state law proclamation to even utter the word “gay” in schools. LGBT gay/straight alliances, whose whole purpose was to foster better understanding and support between students, offering a safe place to prevent bullying and violence, were also forbotten by the corrupt politicians who thought violence against those who are “different” is acceptable, and maybe even preferred by the thugs in power. All done in a grand effort to erase all signs of citizens whose lives do not comport with the strict, right-wing, extremist views of those who are in power.
Hopefully, the appellate court ruling will be upheld by the Supreme Court. If not, we can be assured that the corrupt politicians’ efforts to silence and control the population will continue… and will likely only become more intense if they are greenlighted by the courts which have been allowing unabated corruption and extremism to infect our government and educational institutions in this state and elsewhere in the nation.
What Else Is New says
Ron Charity Fraud DeSantis, Renner and their ilk lean toward fascism. Scott wasn’t much better. Still isn’t. Our state joins with Trumpian authoritarianism which quite honestly must be dominated by Stephen Miller who seems to follow Nazism. We must remember what Hitler did to Germany. First the press, then universities, next books, then Jews.
Skibum says
Bo Peep’s comment sends us scratching our heads with mixed messages and contradictions. Anyone (I assume that also includes kids, certainly teens) can buy or read any book they want, but parents can at the same time prevent that from happening during school hours???
Bo Peep appears to be one of those uninformed people who cannot figure out all the wonderful things a simple smartphone is capable of doing for it’s owners, even children! Must not know how easy it is for underage students to lie about their age in order to access nearly any social media platform under an assumed name that they desire to access. In fact, children, teens are much more clever, much more tech savvy that a lot of parents
It is not hard to believe that almost any teen would be able to wow Bo Peep with their knowledge of how they know how to search online for any book they are interested in reading or knowing about, then read it in part or whole online while at school or home or at a friend’s house, or how to do quick reviews of books, EVEN BANNED BOOKS, to find out what they are about so they could read it if they so desired.
The idiocy of those who think they can control knowledge, or stop younger people from accessing knowledge, despite adults putting the very devices capable of finding knowledge into the very hands of those youngsters they want to control… is completely laughable. So to Bo Peep, I give you a hearty belly laugh you so fervently deserve for thinking you and others like you are smarty pants, when in reality, the younger school students are WAY ahead of you in the brain smarts department because they either already know where to go find whatever it is they want to view with that little device parents put in their hands, or they will figure it out in no time at all.
It is much better to teach our young people morals, ethics, civics… instead of trying to hide knowledge from them. The last thing I’ll say is this… can you not remember your own parents trying to tell you NOT to do something? That makes kids DEFINITLY want to do just that simply because they were told not to do it. So great job there, giving them not only the tool in their hands to access whatever they want, but the determination, the NEED to see what others think they should NOT be looking at.
The laugh is on YOU! The younger generation will win every time! Hahahahahahahahaha!