Escambia County, Fla., resident Lindsay Durtschi, a mother of young girls and a member of the P.T.A., has joined a lawsuit challenging the censorship of school libraries in the county. Filed on Wednesday by PEN America, Penguin Random House, children’s and young adult authors, and another parent, the lawsuit seeks not only to declare unconstitutional the book restrictions in Escambia, but also aims to set a national precedent in a climate where school librarians can be arrested for giving children certain books.
PEN America’s Suzanne Nossel comments that Escambia County School Board’s censorship is “an emblematic and egregious example of the pattern that we’ve been documenting across the country as far as an escalation in book removals and targeting of specific narratives involving people of color and LGBTQ authors and stories.”
The lawsuit involves a local high school English teacher named Vicki Baggett who objected to “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” a young adult novel, citing extreme sexual content descriptions. Baggett expanded her campaign and identified 116 books to be removed from school libraries, including “Slaughterhouse-Five” and “The House of Spirits,” as well as the picture book “And Tango Makes Three,” which features two male penguins raising a chick.
The books were initially moved to a restricted section only accessible to students with parental permission. However, after the Don’t Say Gay law was introduced, which applies to classroom instruction, books featuring gay or transgender characters came under fire. Eventually, the board voted to permanently remove “And Tango Makes Three.”
Durtschi attributes the censorship to Florida governor Ron DeSantis’ political agenda, commenting that it is easy for radical members of a community to force their agendas onto others due to the backing of state-level politics. “Now these voices… they’ve been given license now to bring their hatred to the mainstream,” she commented.
The lawsuit could have a national effect; on the day before the lawsuit was filed, the Escambia County School Board voted to fire the district’s superintendent, in part due to his reluctance to remove books from libraries, citing a “toxic” atmosphere. Durtschi feels passionately about the issue: “We’re going to teach you how to tie a tourniquet in case of an active shooter, but they can’t know that men and women may not be the only option for a marriage license?” she said.
