ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Students and teachers will be able to talk freely about sexual orientation and gender identity in Florida classrooms, as long as it’s not part of the curriculum, under an agreement reached Monday between Florida education officials and civil rights lawyers who challenged a state law that critics called “Don’t say gay.”
The agreement clarifies what is allowed in Florida classrooms after the law passed two years ago banning the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity in the early grades. Opponents said the law created confusion about whether teachers could identify as LGBTQ+ or whether they could even have rainbow stickers in classrooms.
Other countries used the Florida law as a model to ban classroom instruction about gender identity or sexual orientation. Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky and North Carolina are among the states with versions of the law.
Under the terms of the settlement, the Florida Board of Education will send instructions to each school district stating that Florida law does not prohibit discussion of LGBTQ+ people or prevent anti-harassment policies based on sexual orientation and gender identity or bans gay-straight alliance groups. The agreement also states that the law is neutral — meaning that what applies to LGBTQ+ people also applies to heterosexual people — and that it does not apply to library books that are not used for classroom instruction.
The law also does not apply to books with casual references to LGBTQ+ characters or same-sex couples, “because they are not instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity, any more than a math problem that asks students to add bushels of apples is instruction about apple farming”, in our opinion.
“What this agreement does is it restores a fundamental principle that I hope all Americans agree on, which is that every child in this country has the right to a public school education where they feel safe, their dignity respects and where their families and parents are welcome,” Roberta Kaplan, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said in an interview. “It shouldn’t be a controversial thing.”
In a statement, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office described the deal as a “major victory,” leaving the law, officially known as the Parental Rights in Education Act, intact.
“We have fought hard to ensure that this law cannot be defamed in court as it has been on the public stage by the media and large corporate actors,” said Ryan Newman, Florida state attorney general. “We are victorious and Florida classrooms will remain a safe place under the Parental Rights in Education Act.”
The bill was supported by the Republican governor even before it was passed in 2022 by the GOP-controlled Florida Legislature. It bans the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade and was expanded to all grades last year.
Republican lawmakers argued that parents should discuss these topics with children and that the law protects children from being taught inappropriate material.
But opponents of the law said it creates a chilling effect in classrooms. Some teachers said they were unsure if they could mention or show a picture of their same-sex partner in the classroom. In some cases, books dealing with LGBTQ+ topics were removed from classrooms, and lines mentioning sexual orientation were removed from school musicals. The Miami-Dade County School Board decided not to pass a resolution recognizing LGBTQ History Month in 2022, despite having done so a year earlier.
The law also sparked ongoing legal battles between DeSantis and Disney over the control of the administrative district for Walt Disney World in central Florida after DeSantis took control of the government in what the company described as retaliation for its opposition to the legislation. DeSantis touted the battle with Disney during his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, which he finished earlier this year.
Civil rights lawyers sued Florida education officials on behalf of teachers, students and parents, claiming the law was unconstitutional, but the case was dismissed last year by a federal judge in Tallahassee who said they lacked standing to sue. The case was appealed to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
Kaplan said they believe the appeals court would have overturned the lower court’s decision, but continuing the case would have delayed any decision by several more years.
“The last thing we wanted for the kids in Florida was any more delay,” Kaplan said.
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