This book ban raised a real stink.
Schools and libraries in one Texas region can no longer ban books just because they’re about “butts and farts,” a court has ruled.
The case came after parents in conservative Llano County complained about books in the public library system, The Houston Chronicle reported, including “I Broke My Butt!” and “Larry the Farting Leprechaun.”
Local officials then ordered them to be pulled from library shelves, along with others they labeled “pornographic filth,” including a memoir about a transgender teen and two books about the history of racism in the US.
However, seven peeved patrons sued to reinstate the books, claiming their removal from the shelves violated the First Amendment, with a district court siding with them, ruling that books could not be banned or censored by government entities just because they did not like them.
After the initial parent complainants appealed, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an injunction that required the library to reinstate the removed titles within 24 hours, the Chronicle noted.
“Librarians may consider books’ contents in making curation decisions,” the judges wrote in their ruling.
“Their discretion, however, must be balanced against patrons’ First Amendment rights… a book may not be removed for the sole—or a substantial— reason that the decisionmaker does not wish patrons to be able to access the book’s viewpoint or message.”
Judge Jacques L. Wiener Jr. wrote in the majority opinion that librarians will still be allowed to remove titles based on existing criteria — like if they are unpopular, damaged or outdated — regardless of content.
The decision will likely cause trouble in some Texas schools as book banning runs rampant throughout the South. According to the American Library Association, Texas made the most attempts across all states to ban or restrict books in 2022 with 93 attempts to restrict access to over 2,300 books.
In the ruling, Wiener also took a stab at the dissenting opinion, written by Judge Kyle Duncan, calling him and Judge Leslie Southwick the “library police,” referencing horror author Stephen King’s “The Library Policeman.”
“King, a well-known free speech activist, would surely be horrified to see how his words are being twisted in service of censorship,” Wiener wrote.
“Per King: ‘As a nation, we’ve been through too many fights to preserve our rights of free thought to let them go just because some prude with a highlighter doesn’t approve of them.’ Defendants and their highlighters are the true library police.”
Wiener also said that “libraries must continuously review their collection to ensure that it is up to date” and engage in “removing outdated or duplicated materials … according to objective, neutral criteria”.
