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I completely disagree with this law, but I don't understand how this is a free speech issue. AFAIK the law isn't restricting anyone's right to freedom of speec

I completely disagree with this law, but I don't understand how this is a free speech issue. AFAIK the law isn't restricting anyone's right to freedom of speech because under this law anyone in FL is free to own, publish, buy, sell, read, or stock any book in any privately owned library. It seems to me that the government is allowed to decide what books to buy and stock in its own libraries. I don't understand how freedom of speech obligates the government to make a book available for free. It seems to me like compelled speech to require the government to stock certain books. As this pertains to schools, I don't understand how the government doesn't have the same right to control the curriculum as it does in any other case. e.g. it is not a violation of a teacher's right to free speech to order them not to teach flat earth theory in public schools because that teacher is an employee and not on their own time. Same as my employer can restrict my speech while on the job without violating my rights.

epistasis 1y ago
Your first and second paragraphs are in opposition to each other. The government is setting strict rules about what sort of books are allowed with this law. It's not a mere selection of the many books, but a strict ban of certain types of books based on their content. When the government establishes laws like this, they must be in accordance with our constitution above all, and that sort of strict criteria on banning certain types of books disagrees with the first amendment and the legal tradition around it. Similarly, you are also wrong about this compelling the government to stock certain books, that's not on the table at all.
- terminalshort 1y ago
  But no books are banned. The government is allowed to set school curriculum in every other case, so why not this one? If you don't like government school rules set by the government, then who gets to set them? I don't think you have a good answer to this. You are dancing around the fact that someone has to decide what books go in the library. Who should that person be? Seems to me that it should be the owner of the library in question, which in this case is the state whose budget and laws are controlled by the legislature.
  - nozzlegear 1y ago
    > You are dancing around the fact that someone has to decide what books go in the library. Who should that person be? It's the school librarian, who purchases books from their vendor lists. Depending on the school, the school board might vote to put a selection policy in place for the librarian. A few states publish a recommended or approved list of books that the librarian chooses from.
    - terminalshort 1y ago
      That may be your preference as to how it should be done, and I see no problem with that. But if your approach is constitutional, so is Florida's. The librarian is an agent of the same government that is controlled by the legislature. If he can decide what books get in and which don't, so can the legislature. > A few states publish a recommended or approved list of books that the librarian chooses from. Well isn't that exactly what FL did?
      - dfxm12 1y ago
        > A few states publish a recommended or approved list of books that the librarian chooses from. Well isn't that exactly what FL did? No.
        terminalshort 1y ago
        if (!banned_books.contains(book) { library.add(book) } if (allowed_books.contains(book) { library.add(book) } It's the same. (Well, not quite. Yours is much more restrictive.)
        didibus 1y ago
        Banning the books takes a stance against the books themselves. It's like an attack to the speech of the authors by the government. The government is openly opposing and calling them obscene. Simply recommending or mandating that a particular set of books should be made available is very different, that's in line with the role they should play here, which is to make sure that a good selection of books for pedagogy is made available to students. What's funny is, the "banned books" might have not even been available in any of the libraries to begin with. That shows the distinction. And finally, even the set of books they make available, it should reasonably look like an effort was made to select them based on an objective criteria of offering the best education. If it starts to feel like it wasn't done so in good faith, it's leaning on propaganda. The librarian, school board, governor, this applies to all of them, it's not their own personal selection of what they want the kids to learn. It's a set of books of their good faith effort at objectively offering the material that benefits the kids education best.
nozzlegear 1y ago
> It seems to me that the government is allowed to decide what books to buy and stock in its own libraries. I don't understand how freedom of speech obligates the government to make a book available for free. The concern here is that letting the government decide which books are kosher for its school libraries and which books aren't kosher is that taken to its extreme, the government could ban all books that aren't the King James Bible without explicitly adopting a pro-King James Bible policy. And if that's the only kind of book they stock in the library, then children who want to check out books are going to be reading literature with a certain kind of slant to it. Replace the King James Bible with whatever you personally wouldn't want kids to be reading, e.g. the Quran or the Kama Sutra.
- terminalshort 1y ago
  > The concern here is that letting the government decide which books are kosher for its school libraries and which books aren't But there isn't any other choice except to not have school libraries at all. The library is owned by the government and the books are paid for by government funds. Somebody has to decide what goes in the library and what doesn't. Who would that be other than the government?
  - mindslight 1y ago
    "The government" isn't necessary some monolithic centrally-commanded actor, like this vision the neofascists have been pushing. Rather, it's made up of individual people making decisions and being held accountable if those decisions are disagreeable. In this case the local librarians, who are accountable to city councils (etc), and thereby the communities they serve.
  - nozzlegear 1y ago
    The government can decide what to teach in its curriculum – it already does that. But the school library doesn't exist solely to deliver curriculum materials directly into the heads of students; it's one of the places where students are supposed to be able to explore ideas and concepts beyond their official lesson plans. The courts have ruled over and over that removing books from school libraries based on the ideas or viewpoints within is a First Amendment violation. So to answer your question: the government can stock the libraries, or the school board can stock them, or the librarian can stock them. The courts have even said they can select books based on age-appropriateness, accuracy and educational value. But if anyone selecting books is making a judgement call about which books go in the libraries based on the ideas/viewpoints within the books, it's a violation of the students' First Amendment rights.
SoftTalker 1y ago
Yes. Obviously there are books that are inappropriate in elementary school libraries. Different criteria may apply to high-school libraries. But the point is these are curated collections no matter what. Nobody is prevented from reading what they want to read outside of that. My high school library didn't offer much popular paperback fiction, but I could have found that at the county public library, or at any bookstore or most general retail stores. School libraries have limited space, funds, and are constantly making decisions about what is age-appropriate and of educational value.
benmmurphy 1y ago
if the government is running a library it shouldn't be able to engage in view point discrimination. for example it shouldn't be able to remove all books by Democratic presidents while keeping books by Republican presidents or vice versa. the weird thing is the state via an accidental conspiracy between librarians has arguably been engaging in view point discrimination. even though this has not been legislated, or commanded by the executive and is probably in contradiction with what the current executive wants it should not be allowed either.
- SilverElfin 1y ago
  Libraries are already engaging in viewpoint discrimination though. That’s what this change to policy is trying to correct (whether it is effective at that or not). Librarians and their activist organizations are choosing to disproportionately stock and feature books aligned to progressive ideology, to bolster their personal political goals. This isn’t an accidental conspiracy - it’s literally what the ALA pushes libraries and librarians to do. They just label it in ways that make it sound academic, like “critical pedagogy”.
- nobody9999 1y ago
  >the weird thing is the state via an accidental conspiracy between librarians has arguably been engaging in view point discrimination. What conspiracy are you talking about? Who are the members of this "conspiracy"? >even though this has not been legislated, or commanded by the executive and is probably in contradiction with what the current executive wants it should not be allowed either. Huh? IIUC, Florida House Bill 1069 (you know, the law we're discussing) was passed by the Florida Legislature and signed intolaw by the Governor of Florida. So yes, it was "legislated" and approved by the current executive in 2023.
didibus 1y ago
I think the issue is your framing of libraries as "the government's own libraries". Those libraries are to the people and paid by the people. Similarly, the school curriculum is not to be controlled by the government, public schools are also to the people and paid by the people. In both cases, the criteria for school curriculum and the books to stock are pedagogy. What will best prepare and educate students so they can innovate, thrive and improve our society later in life. Attempts at seizing control of the school curriculum or the material made available to students for their pedagogy (like books they can research) by the government in a way that appears to be for some political or value setting agenda and not the criteria of offering the best pedagogy for students feels like propaganda and information control for political gain.
const_cast 1y ago
School is public sector, restricting free speech in the public sector is a free speech problem. Private libraries banning books is perfectly fine and theyre allowed to do that. Public libraries aren't private.

epistasis 1y ago

Your first and second paragraphs are in opposition to each other. The government is setting strict rules about what sort of books are allowed with this law. It's not a mere selection of the many books, but a strict ban of certain types of books based on their content. When the government establishes laws like this, they must be in accordance with our constitution above all, and that sort of strict criteria on banning certain types of books disagrees with the first amendment and the legal tradition around it. Similarly, you are also wrong about this compelling the government to stock certain books, that's not on the table at all.

terminalshort 1y ago
But no books are banned. The government is allowed to set school curriculum in every other case, so why not this one? If you don't like government school rules set by the government, then who gets to set them? I don't think you have a good answer to this. You are dancing around the fact that someone has to decide what books go in the library. Who should that person be? Seems to me that it should be the owner of the library in question, which in this case is the state whose budget and laws are controlled by the legislature.
- nozzlegear 1y ago
  > You are dancing around the fact that someone has to decide what books go in the library. Who should that person be? It's the school librarian, who purchases books from their vendor lists. Depending on the school, the school board might vote to put a selection policy in place for the librarian. A few states publish a recommended or approved list of books that the librarian chooses from.
  - terminalshort 1y ago
    That may be your preference as to how it should be done, and I see no problem with that. But if your approach is constitutional, so is Florida's. The librarian is an agent of the same government that is controlled by the legislature. If he can decide what books get in and which don't, so can the legislature. > A few states publish a recommended or approved list of books that the librarian chooses from. Well isn't that exactly what FL did?
    - dfxm12 1y ago
      > A few states publish a recommended or approved list of books that the librarian chooses from. Well isn't that exactly what FL did? No.
      - terminalshort 1y ago
        if (!banned_books.contains(book) { library.add(book) } if (allowed_books.contains(book) { library.add(book) } It's the same. (Well, not quite. Yours is much more restrictive.)
        didibus 1y ago
        Banning the books takes a stance against the books themselves. It's like an attack to the speech of the authors by the government. The government is openly opposing and calling them obscene. Simply recommending or mandating that a particular set of books should be made available is very different, that's in line with the role they should play here, which is to make sure that a good selection of books for pedagogy is made available to students. What's funny is, the "banned books" might have not even been available in any of the libraries to begin with. That shows the distinction. And finally, even the set of books they make available, it should reasonably look like an effort was made to select them based on an objective criteria of offering the best education. If it starts to feel like it wasn't done so in good faith, it's leaning on propaganda. The librarian, school board, governor, this applies to all of them, it's not their own personal selection of what they want the kids to learn. It's a set of books of their good faith effort at objectively offering the material that benefits the kids education best.

nozzlegear 1y ago

> It seems to me that the government is allowed to decide what books to buy and stock in its own libraries. I don't understand how freedom of speech obligates the government to make a book available for free. The concern here is that letting the government decide which books are kosher for its school libraries and which books aren't kosher is that taken to its extreme, the government could ban all books that aren't the King James Bible without explicitly adopting a pro-King James Bible policy. And if that's the only kind of book they stock in the library, then children who want to check out books are going to be reading literature with a certain kind of slant to it. Replace the King James Bible with whatever you personally wouldn't want kids to be reading, e.g. the Quran or the Kama Sutra.

terminalshort 1y ago
> The concern here is that letting the government decide which books are kosher for its school libraries and which books aren't But there isn't any other choice except to not have school libraries at all. The library is owned by the government and the books are paid for by government funds. Somebody has to decide what goes in the library and what doesn't. Who would that be other than the government?
- mindslight 1y ago
  "The government" isn't necessary some monolithic centrally-commanded actor, like this vision the neofascists have been pushing. Rather, it's made up of individual people making decisions and being held accountable if those decisions are disagreeable. In this case the local librarians, who are accountable to city councils (etc), and thereby the communities they serve.
- nozzlegear 1y ago
  The government can decide what to teach in its curriculum – it already does that. But the school library doesn't exist solely to deliver curriculum materials directly into the heads of students; it's one of the places where students are supposed to be able to explore ideas and concepts beyond their official lesson plans. The courts have ruled over and over that removing books from school libraries based on the ideas or viewpoints within is a First Amendment violation. So to answer your question: the government can stock the libraries, or the school board can stock them, or the librarian can stock them. The courts have even said they can select books based on age-appropriateness, accuracy and educational value. But if anyone selecting books is making a judgement call about which books go in the libraries based on the ideas/viewpoints within the books, it's a violation of the students' First Amendment rights.

SoftTalker 1y ago

Yes. Obviously there are books that are inappropriate in elementary school libraries. Different criteria may apply to high-school libraries. But the point is these are curated collections no matter what. Nobody is prevented from reading what they want to read outside of that. My high school library didn't offer much popular paperback fiction, but I could have found that at the county public library, or at any bookstore or most general retail stores. School libraries have limited space, funds, and are constantly making decisions about what is age-appropriate and of educational value.

benmmurphy 1y ago

if the government is running a library it shouldn't be able to engage in view point discrimination. for example it shouldn't be able to remove all books by Democratic presidents while keeping books by Republican presidents or vice versa. the weird thing is the state via an accidental conspiracy between librarians has arguably been engaging in view point discrimination. even though this has not been legislated, or commanded by the executive and is probably in contradiction with what the current executive wants it should not be allowed either.

SilverElfin 1y ago
Libraries are already engaging in viewpoint discrimination though. That’s what this change to policy is trying to correct (whether it is effective at that or not). Librarians and their activist organizations are choosing to disproportionately stock and feature books aligned to progressive ideology, to bolster their personal political goals. This isn’t an accidental conspiracy - it’s literally what the ALA pushes libraries and librarians to do. They just label it in ways that make it sound academic, like “critical pedagogy”.
nobody9999 1y ago
>the weird thing is the state via an accidental conspiracy between librarians has arguably been engaging in view point discrimination. What conspiracy are you talking about? Who are the members of this "conspiracy"? >even though this has not been legislated, or commanded by the executive and is probably in contradiction with what the current executive wants it should not be allowed either. Huh? IIUC, Florida House Bill 1069 (you know, the law we're discussing) was passed by the Florida Legislature and signed intolaw by the Governor of Florida. So yes, it was "legislated" and approved by the current executive in 2023.

didibus 1y ago

I think the issue is your framing of libraries as "the government's own libraries". Those libraries are to the people and paid by the people. Similarly, the school curriculum is not to be controlled by the government, public schools are also to the people and paid by the people. In both cases, the criteria for school curriculum and the books to stock are pedagogy. What will best prepare and educate students so they can innovate, thrive and improve our society later in life. Attempts at seizing control of the school curriculum or the material made available to students for their pedagogy (like books they can research) by the government in a way that appears to be for some political or value setting agenda and not the criteria of offering the best pedagogy for students feels like propaganda and information control for political gain.

const_cast 1y ago

School is public sector, restricting free speech in the public sector is a free speech problem. Private libraries banning books is perfectly fine and theyre allowed to do that. Public libraries aren't private.