23-05-2025
Appeals court rules libraries have right to ‘government speech', can remove books based on content
AUSTIN (KXAN) — The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that libraries can take books off shelves based on their content, reversing a district court's decision in a case involving the Llano County Library.
KXAN reached out to the parties in the case, and will update this story if we receive responses.
Katherine P. Chiarello, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told KXAN in an email that their team is considering its next steps.
'It is very disappointing that, today, the Fifth Circuit has regressed from its long standing protection of a citizen's right to receive information under the First Amendment and that it has attempted to create a circuit split by dramatically expanding the scope of the government speech doctrine,' Chiarello said.
In Friday's ruling, Circuit Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan wrote that the First Amendment of the US Constitution does not grant a right to receive information.
'Yes, Supreme Court precedent sometimes protects one's right to receive someone else's speech. But plaintiffs would transform that precedent into a brave new right to receive information from the government in the form of taxpayer-funded library books. The First Amendment acknowledges no such right,' Duncan wrote.
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The ruling calls this a relief, and that application of such a right 'would be a nightmare.'
'How would judges decide when removing a book is forbidden? No one in this case—not plaintiffs, nor the district court, nor the panel—can agree on a standard,' the ruling reads.
The appeals court also said court precedence holds that collection decisions are speech. In this case, a decision would be 'government speech' protected by the First Amendment.
'From the moment they emerged in the mid-19th century, public libraries have shaped their collections to present what they held to be worthwhile literature. What is considered worthwhile, of course, evolves over the years,' said the court. 'But what has not changed is the fact, as true today as it was in 1850, that libraries curate their collections for expressive purposes. Their collection decisions are therefore government speech.'
The justices also took aim at what it called 'unusually over-caffeinated arguments' made by the case's plaintiffs.
'Judging from the rhetoric in the briefs, one would think Llano County had planned to stage a book burning in front of the library. One amicus intones: 'Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people,'' the ruling reads. 'All Llano County has done here is what libraries have been doing for two centuries: decide which books they want in their collections.'
It said that readers who can't find a book are allowed to seek the book out elsewhere. The plaintiffs in the case could also try to look elsewhere, specifically to the US Supreme Court, for a potentially favorable ruling.
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