ACLU sues after Miami board bans Cuba book
Last Updated: Wednesday, June 21, 2006 | 5:10 PM ET
CBC News
The American Civil Liberties Union is suing a Miami school board after it banned a children's book about Cuba because it made the island nation sound too nice.
The Miami-Dade County School Board voted last week to order the removal of A Visit to Cuba from its libraries.
A parent who was originally from Cuba complained that the book, known as Vamos a Cuba in its Spanish-language edition, failed to show the negative side of the Communist-ruled country.
ACLU Florida director of communication Brandon Hensler told CBC News Online that the organization was getting involved because the board's decision violated freedom of speech.
"U.S. law strictly prohibits censorship anywhere, but especially in a school," he said. "The answer is not to remove this book, but to add more books with a different point of view."
The civil rights group wants the book back on school library shelves by mid-August.
Other books removed
A Visit to Cuba was part of a series of 24 books about other countries, aimed at readers between the ages of five and seven.
The board voted to remove all 24 books from the library shelves, even though they had received no complaints about any of them, Hensler said.
None of the books were on the school curriculum.
Hensler said the decision to remove A Visit to Cuba was a political one, brought on by pressure from anti-Castro Cuban expatriates in Florida.
The ACLU says the last major case involving censorship by a public school board took place in New York in 1982.
