Lawsuit Over ‘Sexually Explicit’ Books In Sarasota Schools Dismissed

SARASOTA COUNTY, FL — A Sarasota County judge has dismissed a lawsuit against the Sarasota County School Board over school books that contain allegedly sexual content.

Robert Louis Craft filed the petition for an emergency injunction July 1 asking a judge to order law enforcement to remove these materials from Sarasota County Schools and called for a grand jury investigation.

In his petition, he accused the school district of exposing children to “sexually explicit materials” and “child rape materials.”

“The (board) has repeatedly ignored the public outcry for the removal and censorship of explicitly sexual materials from public schools. The people have been met by public officers/agents committing specific acts of willful and wanton reckless disregard of the law,” the Englewood man wrote in his complaint.

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Following an Aug. 3 hearing, Judge Maryann Olson Boehm filed an order Monday to throw out the case.

“This court confirms its oral ruling from the hearing and finds that the contentions raised therein are immaterial and irrelevant to the petition,” she wrote. “There is no factual or legal basis for the relief sought. The petitioner’s motion for hearing for jury to deliberate questions of great public concern is stricken at this time.”

Craft attached a list of specific books to his complaint that included “The Bluest Eye,” “Sold,” “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” “The Kite Runner,” “Michelle Obama: Political Icon,” “I Am Jazz” and “How to be an Antiracist.”

At the time the petition was filed, Daniel DeLeo, attorney for the school board, called it “a ridiculous document full of sovereign citizen pseudo-law and nonsense, making improper and baseless claims” and told Patch that the lawsuit “is wholly without merit.”

He added, “Sarasota County like every school district in the state has an existing set of well-publicized and well-worn procedures that are consistent with our First Amendment and which any citizen can use to test the appropriateness of any material in a school library. The plaintiff should stop wasting taxpayer’s money with this silly, meritless lawsuit and avail himself of those procedures.”