Florida: ACLU Sues School District Over Ban On Cuban Book (Pro-Communist book for 5-7 YO kids)

Local 6 (Florida) ^ | June 21, 2006

[Stoat]

ACLU Sues School District Over Ban On Cuban Book

 

POSTED: 1:08 pm EDT June 21, 2006

 

MIAMI -- The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday asked a federal judge to stop the Miami-Dade County school district from removing a series of children's books from its libraries, including one on Cuba, arguing the removal violates students' rights to free press.

The Miami-Dade County Student Government Association joined the ACLU in the suit filed in U.S. District Court in downtown Miami. They argue the books are appropriate for their target group, children ages 5 to 7, and that the board should add materials with alternate viewpoints rather than remove books that could be offensive. Last week, the board voted 6-3 to remove "Vamos a Cuba" and its English-language version, "A Visit to Cuba" from 33 schools, stating the books were inappropriate for young readers because of inaccuracies and omissions about life in the communist nation.

The suit alleged the books were removed without due process, violating students' Fourteenth Amendment rights. It cited staff recommendations to retain the books. "The Miami-Dade School Board's decision to defy U.S. law prohibiting censorship and ignore the recommendation of their own Superintendent and two committees is a slap in the face to our tradition of free speech and the School Board's own standards of due process," said JoNel Newman, an attorney working with the ACLU.

A phone message left for Miami-Dade school officials by The Associated Press was not immediately returned. The suit also condemns the school board's decision to remove 24 other books in the series, including ones on Greece, Mexico and Vietnam, "despite hot having received a complaint about those books and without having reviewed the books in its administrative process."

The ACLU noted the books have received favorable reviews in nationally recognized publications including Publishers Weekly and the School Library Journal. Board member Perla Tabares Hantman, who supported the ban, has said the Cuba book "misleads, confounds or confuses has no part in the education of our students, most especially elementary students, who are most impressionable and vulnerable."

The book, by Alta Schreier, contains images of smiling children wearing uniforms of Cuba's communist youth group and a carnival celebrating the 1959 Cuban revolution. The district owns 49 copies of the book in Spanish and English. The controversy over the book began in April when a parent who said he had been a political prisoner in Cuba complained about its depiction of life under communist rule.

[Stoat]

So it seems that the ACLU is upset over the fact that there are still a few sane people involved with school administrations who balk at the notion of Communist indoctrination of children.  Whenever there's an opportunity to get on the wrong side of any issue, the ACLU rushes to take that side....but that's nothing new.

Hopefully the courts will not only throw out this insanity but will force the ACLU to reimburse the school district for court costs incurred in this matter,

[Brilliant]

Since when does the ACLU have the right to say what reading material a school should decide to keep in its libraries?

[darkangel82]

ka-ping

[ClearCase_guy]

students' rights to free press

Translation: the ACLU can force schools to keep pro-Communist books in school libraries, because it facilitates the brain-washing of young people. It's in the Constitution (see: Penumbra).

[Stoat]

Since when does the ACLU have the right to say what reading material a school should decide to keep in its libraries?

I'm guessing that it's been since about the same time that the ACLU decided that communities and schools can't celebrate Christmas in the ways that they want to.

[atomicpossum]

They argue the books are appropriate for their target group, children ages 5 to 7, and that the board should add materials with alternate viewpoints rather than remove books that could be offensive.

Let's see them take that position about the Bible.

[Shimmer128]

I'm sick of all the liberals whining all the time. Whine, whine, whine, that's all they ever do. :^(

[Egon]

I guess I'd be more annoyed if the books were actually part of the curriculum, and not just available in the library. I had absolutely no interest in Cuba when I was five.

...but I agree, the ACLU sure would be taking the opposite view if we were talking about copies of the Bible.

[Steve_Seattle]

This is a ridiculous lawsuit, brain-dead stupid. No student has a right to have any particular book in the school library, and libraries inevitably exercise discretion (discrimination) in choosing which books to purchase for their libraries and which to reject. If not having a particular book, or removing a particular book, is grounds for a lawsuit, then librarians will have no time left for anything but defending themselves against lawsuits.

[p. henry]

Why should a school board not have the right to determine which instructional materials are used in the schools it administers? Why should a court make that decision?

The 14th Amendment bars any state from depriving a citizen of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Presumably even the ACLU does not contend that the action of the board deprived students of their life or property. Is a student deprived of his liberty when the board decides which books it will stock in its library? If so, what procedure will satisfy the requirement that this deprivation of liberty is accomplished throught a due process of law?

The ACLU's expansive definition of liberty and fairly narrow definition of due process should be viewed as nothing more than an attempt by a liberal advocacy group to hinder actions by the executive and legislative branches of government of which it disapproves by subjecting those actions to judicial scrutiny and review.

[Brilliant]

So the students have the right to require the school to put any book that the ACLU wants in the school library?



If I were the judge, I'd assess fees and costs against the ACLU after I threw them out on their head.

[Onelifetogive]

then librarians will have no time left for anything but defending themselves against lawsuits.

Like business owners?

[Paperdoll]

I fail to understand why the seditious ACLU is allowed to operate in this country. Of course, if it is a tentacle of the 125, I fear to understand.

[AzaleaCity5691]

I doubt that the ACLU wins this one. Maybe they'd win it somewhere else in Florida, but for some reason, I think Miami was the wrong battleground to pick for this one.

[bigjoesaddle]

[Stoat]

WOO HOO! Look what I found at the Amazon page for this book:

Amazon.com A Visit to Cuba (Visit to. . ., a (English).) Books Alta Schreier

What do customers ultimately buy after viewing items like this?

96% buy

Godless: The Church of Liberalism by Ann Coulter $16.77
 

3% buy

Sweet and Low : A Family Story by Rich Cohen $15.75
 

1% buy

From Head to Toe Board Book by Eric Carle $7.99

 

[BenLurkin]

"The suit alleged the books were removed without due process,"

Due process? For a book? What are they smoking there at the ACLU?

[Steve_Seattle]

"Is a student deprived of his liberty when the board decides which books it will stock in its library? If so, what procedure will satisfy the requirement that this deprivation of liberty is accomplished throught a due process of law?"

The ACLU's logic would seem to require that every school board purchase every single book that is published, which is - of course - neither possible nor desirable. But if failure to purchase a particular book is evidence of "censorship," or of an infringement's of the students' liberty, it would seem to follow that they must buy every single book that is published. As you say, this is an incoherent application of the "due process" clause. An interpretation of the Constitution which demands the impossible cannot be the correct interpretation.