Minnesota school district sued by students, parents over book ban policy
Two lawsuits were filed Monday against St. Francis Area School District over its book banning policy.
The ACLU of Minnesota and Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP filed one of the two lawsuits on behalf of two parents of children in the school district to end the "illegal banning of books from the district's school libraries and classrooms."
The lawsuit is in response to the district's recent policy change that removed librarians and teachers from the book approval process and replaced them with a website called "Book Looks," founded by Moms for Liberty, a group that has been at the forefront of the conservative movement targeting books that reference race and sexuality.
The website rates books on a scale of zero to five, with zero being "for everyone" and five being "aberrant." St. Francis banned books with a rating of three and above, according to the ACLU. If a book is already in the library and has a rating of three or above and is challenged, policy dictates that the book must be removed.
Since the policy change, the lawsuit claims at least 46 books were removed or are in the process of being removed from St. Francis schools.
Education Minnesota-St. Francis also filed a separate lawsuit over the book ban on behalf of eight students in the district whose parents are teachers.
That lawsuit claims the district's policy is "antithetical to the values of public education and encouraging discourse."
Both lawsuits allege the policy violates the Minnesota Constitution and state law, saying school districts cannot discriminate against viewpoints expressed in books and that it violates the right to free speech and to receive information, as well as the right to a uniform and adequate education.
"The Book Looks rating system that is now binding upon the school district discriminates extensively based on viewpoint, particularly with regard to topics of gender, race, and religion," the lawsuit said.
The teachers' union says the Holocaust memoir "Night" by Elie Wiesel is set to be removed after a recent complaint.
On Sunday, Book Looks announced it was ceasing operations and taking all reports down from its website.
"Our charge was always to help inform parents and it would appear that mission has been largely accomplished. We pray that publishers will take up the torch and be more transparent regarding explicit content in their books so that there will be no need for a BookLooks.org in the future," an announcement posted to the website says.
St. Francis Area Schools says its legal team is reviewing documents from both lawsuits and determining next steps.
About 4,100 students attend the school district.
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