Do public schools have First Amendment right to remove LGBTQ+ books from shelves?

Do public schools have a First Amendment right to remove LGBTQ+ books from the shelves?

Lawmakers say yes because they say public school libraries are a forum for government speech, not free expression.

Two Florida school districts are being sued for removing books from their libraries, a direct result of a new state law.

Collier County is not one of them, but this district, like the two facing lawsuits, removed dozens of books this school year because of sexual content.

The State of Florida said public schools have a right to remove books because they convey the government’s message– no freedom of speech here.

Ashley Moody, Florida’s attorney general, wrote in defense of the state’s recent law that demands school districts remove or restrict books with sexual content:

“Public school systems, including their libraries, convey the government’s message, and when the government speaks, it may ‘regulate the content of its own message,'” she said.

“I don’t agree to our government officials deciding what children should and shouldn’t read,” said Jacie Keay, Collier County parent and former teacher.

Keay has a child in the Collier County school system. That school district has removed dozens of books from its libraries this school year, strictly following the new state law.

“Yes, obviously, as a parent, I know there’s certain books that are inappropriate because of age, you know, issues or content, and I feel like that should be monitored in certainly putting the right books, the appropriate books in students hands, but I don’t think you should, across the board, ban books,” Keay said.

WINK asked Peter Bromberg, a 32-year librarian and an associate director for EveryLibrary, an anti-book banning organization, for his take on what the attorney general wrote defending Florida’s law.

“Once those books are on the shelf, we can’t allow the governor or the attorney general, or the principal, or the school, the school board head or an angry parent to say, ‘That book has to come off the shelf because it offends me,'” Bromberg said.

WINK reached out to the attorney general’s office for comment but got no answer.