Lawsuit filed against Polk County School Board for sexually explicit books in class

This story has been updated to include a statement from Polk County Schools.

POLK COUNTY, Fla. – A lawsuit was filed against the Polk County School Board for allegedly violating Florida law and allowing sexually explicit books in the classrooms.

Filed by Lake County GOP Chairman and Attorney at Sabatini Law Firm Anthony Sabatini on behalf of Polk County Citizens Defending Freedom, the lawsuit states the board “disregarded” provisions of Florida Statutes that restrict age-inappropriate materials from Florida classrooms.

Books are able to be challenged by a parent or resident, under the law, and then are set for review by county school boards.

According to the lawsuit, the state law requires the school board “adopt a policy regarding an objection by a parent or a resident of the county to the use of a specific material, which clearly describes a process to handle all objections and provides for resolution.”

The complaint states that in “attempting to comply,” the Polk County School Board adopted a policy, but it “fails to comply with the law itself.”

Executive Director of Polk County Citizens Defending Freedom Robert Goodman told Florida’s Voice that the nonpartisan citizen advocacy group has been in discussion with the school board regarding “inappropriate sexual content” since December 2021, and that he wishes “it hadn’t come to this.”

Along with Goodman, the other two members of the group the lawsuit was filed on behalf of include Erin Fiore and Debra Baublitz.

Goodman said they have discovered books and graphic novels that have “graphic rape, beastiality, pedophilia” and more.

“Content that is not acceptable for a 13 year old to be able to find on a library shelf,” Goodman said. “If we put this into movie form, it would be an X rated movie, and everyone, no matter what side of the aisle they’re on, everyone would say, a child can’t see that.”

He said the group first discovered 16 books and started off by reaching out to the superintendent, who according to Goodman, said he didn’t “really have a problem with any of the content.”

Some of the books Goodman said were available to students included All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson, Forever by Judy Blume, Identical by Ellen Hopkins, Lucky by Alice Sebold, and The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur.

Polk County Citizens Defending Freedom has filed more than 50 challenges against inappropriate materials, and Goodman said “not once” has the district’s media center specialist “reached out to anyone.”

Included in the lawsuit are detailed descriptions of a book Fiore filed a challenge on titled Breathless by Jennifer Niven. A hearing on that challenge was held in October. Baublitz filed a challenge for the book titled Identical by Ellen Hopkins in June 2023 and a hearing on that challenge was held in September.

The lawsuit said the review committees voted to retain the books in all of the district’s schools, an appeal request was made after that, and the school board “has never voted on whether to keep the book.”

“The Superintendent’s decision not to take up the requested appeals and his refusal to recommend the School Board take action on CDF’s objections is a violation of Policy 2522 and 1006.28 Florida Statutes,” the lawsuit stated.

The lawsuit said the school board has allowed minor children to be a part of the review committee. Goodman questioned “why would they even do that?”

“If you take a 16-year-old boy and you give him a very graphic, sexually explicit passage to read, and you say, ‘hey, Bobby, do you want to remove that book?’ I think any 15-year-old boy is gonna say, ‘heck no, I’m going to tell my friends, let’s check this book out,’” Goodman said.

During a recent press conference with Goodman regarding the lawsuit, Sabatini said the school board has “neglected” its responsibility.

“This school board has chosen to allow books that are not borderline pornographic, they are full blown pornography,” Sabatini said. “These things are highly illegal. There is no books in debate here that anybody would even consider to be art of any form. These are pornographic books that are in the school system.”

During the press conference, people were protesting against the lawsuit. Sabatini called out the protesters, saying they were “violent people” who were screaming and bumping into others.

“This is why there’s probably only about 10 leftists left in places like Polk County,” Sabatini said. “Because they are completely losing their minds when they’re approached with common sense.”

Sabatini said they will also be drafting a letter to the governor for the removal of certain school board members who are “violating the law.”

Goodman questioned why anyone would “fight so hard” to keep pedophilia, beastiality, graphic rape, incest, “in combination” with drug use and school shootings, when there are “so many thousands of good books that help open somebody’s mind and give people an opportunity.”

“When people are 18, they can choose whatever they want to read,” Goodman said. “If I’m a parent, and I want my child to read about incest, I can just buy the book on Amazon […] or someplace else, and it wouldn’t cost a lot of money. It’s just public tax dollars, and no parental supervision.”

Goodman said “all [they’re] asking for” is for the school board to “put fair protections in place.”

“If they came up with a reasonable policy, maybe every book that’s challenged doesn’t go away,” Goodman said. “But if we got it where it was a fair process, and people actually removed pornographic books, then there wouldn’t be an issue. So we’re hoping they do that. We’re hoping they make a fair policy, and they just remove the books that are bad enough to be considered pornography.”

The “failures” the lawsuit pointed to that Polk County School Board committed include:

• Failure of the Board to take responsibility for the content of the material placed in the schools by removing itself from its own duty to review material brought to their attention by whatever means, and further, by allowing itself to be shielded from the citizens’ initiated review process as required by law.
• Enacting a nonconforming appellate process in the policy.
• Disregarding the requirement that certain individuals be appointed to the School Library Review Committee, and instead contributing to the sexualization of children by appointing children to review unbelievably graphic sexual content under objection.
• The requirement that the “district-level curriculum supervisor” meet with the material objector and attempt to resolve the objection.
• Failure to allow the appealing parent or resident to speak at an appeal.
• Failure to follow Open Meetings Law at such reviews/appeals.
• Failing to remove all copies district wide of an objectionable book and instead limiting removal to one school at a time only thus requiring up to ten challenges to protect all the children from one book.

“By disregarding these provisions, the School Board violated the requirements of Florida Statute 1006.28 and the regulations promulgated thereunder,” the lawsuit stated. “As a group Polk County residents, Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief, and an order requiring the School Board of Polk County to abide by its own policy and Florida Law.”

A spokesperson for Polk County Schools told Florida’s Voice the district “follows state law regarding school library book challenges.”

“The school district has not yet been served with this lawsuit,” the spokesperson said. “As soon as we receive service, we will begin preparation of our defense.”