Lawsuit filed challenging Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law
Late Monday (July 26), Lambda Legal, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Southern Legal Counsel and private counsel Baker McKenzie filed a federal lawsuit challenging Florida’s House Bill 1557, commonly referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, according to a press release from Lambda Legal.
The law bans discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in grades K-3, restricts such discussions for students through grade 12 and is “based on undefined standards of appropriateness,” according to the press release.
The lawsuit alleges that HB 1557 “effectively silences and erases LGBTQ students and families,” that it “demands that school districts implement its terms,” and that it “empowers any parent to directly sue the school district if they are dissatisfied with its implementation of the law.” Lambda Legal Staff Attorney Kell Olson said, “The purpose and effect of this breathtakingly broad law is to silence LGBTQ students and families, and the law’s imprecision intensifies its chilling effect. “Because the law invites any parent dissatisfied with a school’s censorship of LGBTQ-related speech to sue the school district and collect attorney fees, it causes schools to aggressively control discussions that might trigger the type of moral objection that gave rise to this law,” Olson continued. “Already, schools have cut anti-bullying guidance for K-12 teachers and pulled books from shelves.
LBGTQ parents are struggling to find gentle ways to explain to their children why they won’t be able to talk openly about their families when they go back to the classroom in a few weeks. “This discriminatory law puts students at risk and sends a message of shame and stigma that has no place in schools.” The plaintiffs represented in the
