The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Utah on behalf of the estate of Kurt Vonnegut; authors Elana K. Arnold, Ellen Hopkins, and Amy Reed; and two anonymous Utah public high school students, over the state’s book banning law. Utah’s Sensitive Materials Law, passed in 2022 and amended in 2024, requires public schools and their libraries to remove certain “inappropriate” books or books with any reference to sex. These books include Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, among many other award-winning titles. The plaintiffs write in the complaint that the law […]
Book Bans
SCOTUS Won’t Hear TX Library Case, Upholds Book Bans
The Supreme Court decided not to hear an appeal in the Texas book banning case Little v. Llano, upholding a Court of Appeals ruling that sides with the county and allows book removals. In 2021, Llano County officials removed 17 books about race and slavery, LGBTQIA+ identities, and “butt and fart books” from the public library. The bans were overturned and books were protected by two courts, which ruled that government officials could not remove books based on their content. But in May, a full en banc ruling by the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit Court of appeals reversed those decisions, […]
Missouri Book Banning Law Struck Down
A Missouri Circuit Court overturned a state law that criminalized public and private school teachers and librarians for providing students books with what the state considered “sexually explicit material.” The judge called the law “unconstitutionally vague vague… and overbroad.” The law, which was enacted in 2022, resulted in hundreds of books being removed from school libraries. School staff members who were in violation could be fined $2000 or jailed for up to a year. “This is a real victory for all library professionals who are trained to select age-appropriate, developmentally appropriate material for students in both public and private schools,” […]
Judge Again Rules Against TX READER Law
Judge Alan D. Albright of the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division again ruled that Texas’s “READER Act,” which would require booksellers to rate every book they sell to public school libraries based on vague notions of “sexually explicit material,” is unconstitutional. He issued a permanent injunction against the law. Albright, who made the same ruling in 2023 before the case was appealed, agreed with plaintiffs Blue Willow Bookshop, BookPeople, the ABA, AAP, Authors Guild, and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, that “READER can and does violate the First Amendment in several ways.” Albright […]
FL Judge Denies TANGO Authors’ Free Speech Claim
A judge in the Northern District of Florida ruled against two authors’ lawsuit against a school board, claiming that removing their book, AND TANGO MAKES THREE, from school libraries violates students’ and the authors’ First Amendment rights. Authors Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, plus an elementary school student known as B. G., argue that the book, which depicts a same-sex relationship between penguins who care for a chick, was removed based on its viewpoint. In his opinion, Judge Allen Cothrel Winsor often looks to the Texas book banning case Little v. Llano, which determined that “a library’s collection decisions are […]
Publishers, Authors, Win Florida Book Banning Suit
A federal judge has sided with six publishers, the Authors Guild, and several authors and students in their lawsuit against Florida over HB 1069, an “overbroad and unconstitutional” law which bans books that “describe sexual content” in school libraries. The law made unavailable books including Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, and titles by author plaintiffs Julia Alvarez, John Green, Laurie Halse Anderson, Jodi Picoult, and Angie Thomas. “None of these books are obscene,” writes Judge Carlos Mendoza of the U.S. Middle District Court of Florida in his decision. “The restrictions placed on these books are thus […]