A full en banc ruling from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned both a lower-court decision and a Court of Appeals ruling that had found a Texas library’s removal of books was a violation of the First Amendment, in a 10-7 decision. Last year, a regular three-person Court of Appeals panel ruled that the Llano County Library could not remove books based on their content, writing that, “Government actors may not remove books from a public library with the intent to deprive patrons of access to ideas with which they disagree.” The titles at issue included books about […]
Book Bans
Half Price Books Fights Texas Bookstore Censorship Bill
Half Price Books spoke out recently in opposition to a new bill, Texas, HB 1375, which would allow people to sue bookstores for “damages arising from the distribution, transmission, or display of harmful material to a minor.” Half Price Books owner Kathy Doyle Thomas criticized the bill, saying it’s vague, and unrealistic to expect booksellers to read and assess every single book in their stores. She told NBC DFW, “How do we know in all of these books that we have in all of the stores across the state — we don’t know what’s inappropriate. [They] could be inappropriate in Corpus […]
Florida Bookstore Removes LGBTQ Titles
Bodacious Bookstore & Café in Pensacola, FL recently had staff remove LGBTQ titles from its shelves, resulting in resignations and attempts by booksellers to hide the books elsewhere in the store. According to employees, interim manager Beth O’Connor directed them to make the removals, sending at least one employee home when the employee refused. Removed titles include Billie Jean King’s All In, Elliot Page’s Pageboy, and titles by Casey McQuiston. The removals began when a customer complained about profanity on a greeting card, prompting management to review all store materials. NBC News writes that “what began as a purge of […]
Judge Blocks Iowa Book Ban Law, Again
U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher reinstated an injunction against Senate File 496, the Iowa state law that removes books with LGBTQ themes and references to sex acts from school libraries, after an Iowa Eighth Circuit panel reversed the original injunction in December 2023. Locher wrote that the law is unconstitutional, and “makes no attempt to evaluate a book’s literary, political, artistic, or scientific value before requiring the book’s removal from a school library and thus comes nowhere close to applying the ‘obscenity’ standard that is typically used to determine the constitutionality of statewide book restrictions. The result is the forced […]
Six Publishers and Authors Guild Sue Over Idaho Book Ban Law
Six publishers—Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster, and Sourcebooks—have filed suit challenging a book banning law in Idaho that went into effect on July 1, 2024. The publishers are joined as plaintiffs by Authors Guild; authors Malinda Lo, David Levithan, and Dashka Slater; the Donnelly Public Library District; a teacher; two students; and two parents. The law, HB 710, affects both public and school libraries. Like other book banning laws, it prevents minors of any age from accessing any books with “sexual content,” with a definition of the term that’s “exceptionally broad, vague, […]
Under the New Administration, DOE Says There Are No Book Bans In Schools
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has quickly dropped 11 complaints “related to so-called ‘book bans'” and “rescinded all department guidance issued under the theory that a school district’s removal of age-inappropriate books from its libraries may violate civil rights laws.” Additionally, the OCR “will no longer employ a ‘book ban coordinator’ to investigate local school districts and parents working to protect students from obscene content.” The release claims it is overturning a “book ban hoax.” Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor says in the announcement that “the department is beginning the process of restoring the […]