The Penguin Random House Intellectual Freedom Taskforce is continuing to oversee a variety of initiatives to protect the freedom to read. As you may have seen, on August 29, we filed a new legal case against the state of Florida, challenging the book banning provisions of HB 1069, in addition to our ongoing lawsuits in Iowa and Escambia County, Florida. During Banned Books Week in September, our Banned Wagon tour will hit the road again, visiting nine communities across the U.S. to give away free copies of banned books and share ways to take action in the fight against book bans.
Updates on our legal cases and the Banned Wagon tour are below. For more information and ways to get involved, please visit our PRH Banned Books Hub.
Intellectual Freedom Litigation Overview
Florida HB 1069 (Middle District of Florida)
- Overview: Florida House Bill 1069 unlawfully restricts and removes hundreds of First Amendment–protected books from school and classroom libraries on the basis of vague and overbroad definitions of sexual content without regard for their literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Students have a right to read and authors have a right to be read without unreasonable government interference.
- Plaintiffs: Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster, Sourcebooks, the Authors Guild, John Green (Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars), Julia Alvarez (How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies), Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak and Shout), Angie Thomas (The Hate U Give and On the Come Up), Jodi Picoult (Nineteen Minutes), students, and parents .
- Status: Filed in federal court on August 27, 2024.
Iowa SF 496 (Southern District of Iowa / 8th Circuit Court of Appeals)
- Overview: Senate File 496 unlawfully restricts and removes hundreds of First Amendment–protected books from school and classroom libraries on the basis of vague and overbroad definitions of sexual content without regard for their literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Students have a right to read and authors have a right to be read without unreasonable government interference.
- Plaintiffs: Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster, Sourcebooks, the Authors Guild, the Iowa State Education Association, Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak and Shout), John Green (Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars), Malinda Lo (Last Night at the Telegraph Club and A Scatter of Light), Jodi Picoult (Nineteen Minutes), educators, students, and parents.
- Status: In response to the lawsuit, the state of Iowa acknowledged that restrictions on references to sexual orientation or gender identity do not apply to libraries, knocking out half of the ban.On December 29, 2023, Federal Judge Stephen Locher blocked the state from enforcing the ban against references to sex. The state appealed to the 8th On August 9, 2024, an 8th Circuit panel issued a ruling rejecting the state’s main argument supporting their book ban: that selection of library books represents so-called “government speech,” akin to raising a monument in a town square. However, the panel sent the case back to the district court to apply the new standard established by the Supreme Court in NetChoice vs Moody, which governs First Amendment challenges to statutes.The law will go back into effect while the plaintiffs submit an updated motion for an injunction; the state has not indicated whether it plans to enforce it pending further judicial review.
Escambia County Florida (Northern District of Florida)
- Overview: The Escambia County School Board in Florida unlawfully restricted and removed hundreds of First Amendment–protected books from school libraries in the county due to viewpoint discrimination against LGBT+ or BIPOC content and themes. Students have a right to read and authors have a right to be read without unreasonable government interference.
- Plaintiffs: Penguin Random House, PEN America, Sarah Brannen (Uncle Bobby’s Wedding), George M. Johnson (All Boys Aren’t Blue), David Levithan (Two Boys Kissing), Kyle Lukoff (When Aidan Became a Brother and Too Bright to See), Ashley Hope Pérez (Out of Darkness), and parents and students in Escambia County, Florida.
- Status: On January 10, 2024, Federal Judge Kent Wetherell denied Escambia’s motion to dismiss, rejecting the county’s “government speech” defense and allowing the case to move forward. The lawsuit is currently in the discovery phase, which includes document production and depositions by both sides.
Penguin Random House has filed amicus briefs in support of several additional cases. For more information, please visit the PRH Banned Books Hub here.
The Banned Wagon
Starting in Banned Books Week, the Banned Wagon—powered by Penguin Random House, Unite Against Book Bans (UABB), First Book, and Little Free Library—is hitting the road for our second Banned Wagon tour, stopping at bookstores and libraries in nine American communities across the Midwest and the South that are being impacted by book banning, and offering free books and resources.
Throughout the three-week tour, the bus will make nine stops (more than double the amount from 2023!): Des Moines, Iowa; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Chicago, Illinois; Zionsville, Indiana; Cleveland, Ohio; Richmond, Virginia; Southern Pines, North Carolina; Gainesville, Florida; and Austin, Texas—all communities with a high volume of book bans and challenges. In addition to independent bookstores, this year’s route includes three libraries, in response to the alarming 92 percent increase in books targeted for censorship at public libraries in 2023, according to the American Library Association (ALA).
For more information, including the tour route, click here.