FL: No Art For Children

Florida's law about materials "harmful to minors" apparently needed a tweak, and Sen. Stan McClain has provided just the thing.

SB 1692 fixes that part of Florida law by addressing the part that defines "harmful to minors." It currently includes in that definition the clause that says that a work is not "harmful to minors" if it has "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors." 

McClain proposes to add a little language to that part of the definition, saying that it does not apply to any of the naughty stuff 

in an educational setting or to a determination made by an employee of any kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, junior high school, or secondary school, whether public or private, with regard to such material if the material is possessed by a person with the intent to send, sell, distribute, exhibit, represent, or display it to a minor and is not part of an approved instructional or library material.

In other words, if there's any depiction of "any kind of nudity, sexual conduct, or sexual excitement," then artistic merit doesn't count. If a school employee says that in their professional judgment the work has merit for the students, that doesn't count. There is a carve-out for materials specifically authorized as part of state-required health education. 

The proposal is a little confusing-- it's okay if the work is part of "approved instructional or library material," and who is doing that approving if not a school employee? But as always, the point is not to be clear, but to be scary.

To help with the scariness, the bill requires the school to pull the materials within five days of an objection being filed and the material must remain "unavailable" while being considered. The bill says specifically that the school board may not consider "potential literary, artistic, political, or scientific value as a basis for retaining the material." 

If the board doesn't behave itself, the state may withhold state funds, grants, lottery funds, or any other funds they can figure out how to withhold. Plus the district has thirty days to come up with a "corrective action plan." After which the state can decide if it wants to come up with any other punishment for the district.

We humans do threat assessment by asking 1) how likely is it that the bad thing will happen and 2) how bad will the consequences be? So top-notch threat legislation like this hits both. How likely is a district to get in trouble? Hard to say-- the law is vague and anybody can turn them in. How bad will the consequences be? Probably pretty bad, but how bad is unclear.

What is clear is that Florida students would be protected from that nasty artistic, literary, political and scientific merit. Way to close that loophole!

If passed, the bill is supposed to take effect July 1, 2025. Place your bets now on how long it will take for some sassy district to ban the Bible.