Story by Jacob Lehrer

As a rally of book banning is happening across America, Llano County has gained national attention over a lawsuit between the county officials and Llano residents who argue the county is removing books based on political views.

In the past year, parents across America have condemned school boards, public school libraries, and public libraries over the topics teens and children are taught, and the books they have access to.

The material is on topics about critical race theory, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Around the state of Texas, mainly in public school libraries, there were even novels with sexually graphic literature.

So… yeah. Parents are pretty mad at what their student has access to.

Specifically, in Texas, parents and school officials around the state are removing books from public schools, and recently have gone after public libraries. Last year in this campaign, Texas State Representative Matt Krause had compiled a list of 850 books that Republicans deemed too inappropriate for children.

60 of those books were found in the Llano Public library, both electronic and hardcopy.

To remove these books from library shelves, Llano County officials and the library board took a series of measures several Llano residents argue violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

The Defendants in the lawsuit are Llano County Judge Ron Cunningham; commissioners Jerry Don Moss, Peter Jones, Mike Sandoval, and Linda Raschke; Library System Director Amber Milum; and Library Advisory Board members Bonnie Wallace, Rochelle Wells, Rhonda Schneider, and Gay Baskin.

The Defendants are responding to community uproar that children have access to sexually explicit literature. The Defendants argue that these topics, even in children’s books, are indoctrinating and sexually explicit.

“I think we owe it to all parents, regardless if it’s a school library or a public library, to make sure that material is not inappropriate for children,” Llano County Judge Ron Cunningham said.

The three libraries in Llano county were shut down for three days for libraries to conduct the book removals. When Kingsland Branch Library’s head librarian Suzette Baker did not comply with the actions make by the county, she was fired.

Additionally, the county officials replaced members of the library board. Then, the library board closed their meetings to the public. Furthermore, the county officials shut down the library’s electronic system Overlook, which contains over 17,000 books.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is trying to back the defendants. “Paxton has asked Austin-based U.S. district judge Robert Pitman to dismiss the case by arguing, among other things, that the adult plaintiffs have no standing since the books were in the library’s children’s section.”

The plaintiffs — Leila Green Little, Jeanne Puryear, Kathy Kennedy, Rebecca Jones, Richard Day, Cynthia Waring and Diane Moster—are “claiming officials engaged in censorship in violation of the First Amendment when they banned a slew of books the officials deemed inappropriate.”

In the official compliant of the Plaintiffs, they said, “The censorship that Defendants have imposed on Llano County public libraries is offensive to the First Amendment and strikes at the core of democracy. The right to publish and receive ideas—even politically unpopular ideas or ones that some find offensive or distasteful— is enshrined in our Constitution.”

The Plaintiffs argue that the books removed were not sexually explicit, but instead their subject matter was against the political agenda held by the Defendants.

In fact, one library board member wanted to relocate the books to the young adult section, rather than censoring them completely.

“It is the only way that I can think of to prohibit future censorship of books I do agree with, mainly the Bible, if more radicals come to town and want to use the fact that we censored these books against us,” wrote library board member Bonnie Wallace in an email to the County Judge.

The Plaintiff’s also believe that the Fourteenth Amendment was violated when the library board closed their meeting to the public, denying future say over the actions the county and library board have taken to remove books.

The case in court is being reviewed by Justice Robert Pittman of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. Pittman was the Justice who originally blocked Texas’ Social Media Censorship Bill back in December.

The issue on book bans is not limited to government officials and residents. In some parts of Texas, students from high schools are forming groups trying to get access books that parents and school officials are trying to remove.

The students forming these groups also oppose the government and parent claims of harmful literature over sexual content. In an article by the Texas Tribune, students in Katy claim they are required to read “Hamlet,” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” both of which have sexual content within them. The student groups believe that it is the ideas and themes of the books that cause them to be banned, not just the sexual content.

The First Amendment, historically protecting unpopular ideas, will be set up against the Defendants actions in Llano county. In the Supreme Court case Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico, the Court states, “Local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books.”

And in the Supreme Court case Tinker v Des Moines, the Supreme Court has stated that students and teachers does “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

If the Plaintiffs have a valid case, then a ruling in the case might set the record straight for what government, school officials, and parents can do about these materials in libraries.

Story by Jacob Lehrer