TALLAHASSEE — A federal judge this week rejected a challenge to a 2023 decision by the Escambia County School Board to remove the book from school libraries, ruling the move did not violate First Amendment rights.

“And Tango Makes Three,” which tells the story of two male penguins who raised a penguin chick at New York’s Central Park Zoo, has become a prominent part of a at Florida schools. The for its depictions of same-sex parents raising a child.

But Chief U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor, in an 18-page ruling Tuesday, turned down First Amendment arguments raised by the book’s authors, Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, and another plaintiff, a student identified by the initials B.G.

Winsor wrote that the “government does not create a forum for others’ speech by purchasing books fo

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