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Book Banning in Florida

By gregladen on February 7, 2009.

Miami school officials can remove from library shelves a book about Cuba that depicts smiling children in communist uniforms but avoids mention of problems in the country, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Miami-Dade County School District wouldn't be infringing freedom of speech rights by removing 49 copies of "Vamos a Cuba" and its English-language version, "A Visit to Cuba," from its libraries. The board has argued that the books, for children ages 5 to 8, present an inaccurate view of life in Cuba.

.. so, the court decides the accuracy (value? legitimacy? truthiness?) of the contents of an arbitrary book AND these values are determined to be the determining factor in whether or not a book should be in a library? Holy crap.

So what about all the other books in the library?

Hat tip CMF

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Any reference to this ruling?

What scares you. The book banning or the "here, let me google that for you" thing?

If only those whacko Miami Cubans and their compadres of the united right wing religious folk looked at America this way--most every book in the library would be banned; not least of which would be the abstinence based sex ed texts...

By the real me (not verified) on 07 Feb 2009 #permalink

The book banning scares me ... doing the google thing was nice.

Florida just can't seem to decide on an identity, can it?

It votes Gore - Bush - Obama ...

Tries to pass an academic freedumb bill - then shoots it down ...

Identifies Titanboa and bans books.

We need more northerners. Come on guys ... you know you want to. ;-)

Just give the northern counties to Georgia. You know what they say in Florida: The farther south you go, the farther north you get....

"The board has argued that the books, for children ages 5 to 8, present an inaccurate view of life in Cuba."

I suggest that they should ban The Paper Bag Princess. After all, it presents an inaccurate view of dragons.

Seriously, banning a kids' book?