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
Leave a Reply