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CBS News
27-03-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Colorado school district responds to lawsuit after removing certain books off library shelves
A battle over books has put the Elizabeth School District center stage of what it says has been false information about why it chose to remove 19 book titles from its school libraries. "This is not about political views. This is not about ideology. This is about inappropriate content," said Dan Snowberger, superintendent of schools at the district. It was last spring when the district first reviewed the material inside its school libraries. "During that process, we were looking for content that was sensitive, and not to remove it, but we have parents who were concerned," Snowberger said. "Instead of removing books that were sensitive, our board felt like we wanted to empower our parents." Eventually, the board decided to bring 19 book titles before parents to decide if they wanted to keep those books on library shelves or remove them. "Those 19 books were identified by the reviewers as probably being inappropriate in our schools," Snowberger said. "Many districts may just remove them. We felt like ... it was our community's decision to review and make that decision. So we put them on display for 25 days, [and] invited our parents to come in and say, 'What do you think? Should these books remain in our libraries? Should they be added to our sensitive topic list, or should they be removed?' And overwhelmingly our community felt they had no educational value, and they should be removed." That was back in September 2024 when the district says the school board decided, following an overwhelming support from families, to remove those 19 titles: Snowberger said, ultimately, some of those books were deemed inappropriate for certain ages levels. "If anyone were to read the books, if anyone took the time to actually read some of the quotes, if I read them on air, you probably would be fined by the FCC," Snowberger said. "I can't even transmit the contents of these books through my child internet protection act filter." However, months since this decision was made, The ACLU of Colorado filed a lawsuit against the district on behalf of two students, the NAACP and the Author's Guild, claiming the removal of these books violate a student's first amendment right to be able to access different information and ideas. "Just because parents believe that the books shouldn't be put back on the shelves does not alleviate the school district from its requirements under the First Amendment to not ban books based on viewpoint and content discrimination," said Sarah Neel, an attorney for the ACLU of Colorado. A district court judge's ruling siding with the ACLU last week would've ordered the school district to reinstate these books back on the school shelves. Yet, this week, Snowberger says they were granted a stay of the order this week pending their appeal of the decision. "So they remain off our shelves. We await right now the judge's decision as to whether she will reissue that order after the plaintiffs respond to our motion," Snowbeger said. "We believe that the district court judges opinion here was correct, and we will fight to uphold that at the 10th circuit," said Neel. Snowberger says even if the district court does uphold their decision to have Elizabeth schools reinstate these books, it could take some time before they end up on shelves. "These books have been disposed of," Snowberger said. "We destroyed them because, again, they were removed on Sept. 9, and the lawsuit was filed Dec. 20." The district shared a handful of excerpts of these books with CBS News Colorado to showcase what they say is material its school district does not believe should be on its shelves. However, it does support a family's right to choose what their children read or even bring to school to read on their free time. "It is not our job to change the values of our children," Snowberger said. "We want our children to come to school with whatever values they bring from home, and go home with those values. It doesn't matter if their families are left, right or center politically. We want children to have the values that their parents instilled. That's who we believe should instill values in children [and] not our public school district." The plaintiffs in this case, those being represented by the ACLU, have until Friday to respond to the districts stay of order. "At this point in time, the judge will wait for their response, make a decision, I imagine, early next week, and at that point, we will determine whether we need to continue with our appeal to the 10th circuit or whether that judge will actually hold a hearing and allow the district to present its case," Snowberger said.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Judge rules Elizabeth schools cannot remove library books for expressed views
DENVER (KDVR) — A U.S. District Court judge ruled Wednesday that the Elizabeth School District must return all books it removed from its libraries no later than March 25. The district was also instructed that it could not remove additional books because the district 'disagrees with the views expressed therein or merely to further their preferred political or religious orthodoxy.' Elizabeth School District facing further legal action regarding book ban The books were removed in 2024 and placed on a 'sensitive topics' list which required guardians to allow their students to read the books or check them out from the library. Elizabeth Public School Board Secretary Mary Powell said in a video published by the district in September that the board looked at seven sensitive topic areas when considering which books should be banned, including sexual content, graphic violence, racism, profanity, ideations of self-harm and religious views. 'We put religious views on there because as a Christian, you may not want your child to read the Quran, and as a non-believer, you may not want your child to read the Bible, so we were trying to be fair and even-handed on how we dealt with the religious viewpoint topic,' Powell said. Elizabeth School District had not made a public statement about the ruling on Wednesday but did have a link on its homepage to a fundraiser by Parents United to help pay the district's legal fees. 'Parents United is proud to hose (sic) this fundraiser in support of the Elizabeth School District's fight against an ACLU lawsuit seeking to force age-inappropriate and explicit materials back into school libraries,' the group's statement on the website reads. 'Donations will help the district defend its commitment to providing a safe, focused, and academically-driven education for all students while protecting community values and parental rights.' Superintendent Dan Snowberger spoke to 710KNUS on 'The Jeff and Bill Show' and posted a video of the interview on the district's Facebook page. The district called the case a 'David vs. Goliath legal battle.' In the video clip, the interviewer asked Snowberger why the district wouldn't just return the books to the libraries. 2 Colorado zoo exhibits, 1 zoo named among USA Today's 10 Best 'I think it's the right thing to do to empower parents. I think our public education system has continued to take on more and more responsibility, and this is the right thing to do,' Snowberger said. 'We must empower parents to make important decisions for our children, and our libraries have to support our curriculum program. We have to do better in this country on the education of children, and if things are in our school for purposes other than education, then what are we about?' Snowberger went on to say that he does not want to be educating students on topics that their parents 'may not find in their family values,' and said it's not the district's place to change those values. The case was filed by the ACLU of Colorado on behalf of two students in the district. The ACLU said that the board removed the 18 books from district libraries because officials cited 'inappropriate content, mostly sexual in nature.' The ACLU called the injunction a 'major victory' for district students and 'all Coloradans.' 'Having access to a diversity of viewpoints is integral to the well-being and education of all students, and this injunction gives them that opportunity,' said Tim Macdonald, ACLU of Colorado's legal director, in a statement. 'School Districts that ban books because the officials disagree with the content or viewpoints expressed in those books do a disservice to students, authors, and the community. Such book bans violate the Constitution — period. We'll keep fighting to ensure a permanent end to this practice.' The books removed from the district's libraries included 'Anne Frank: A Diary of a Young Girl,' as well as '1984,' 'Brave New World,' 'The Hunger Games,' 'The Color Purple,' 'Catcher in the Rye' and 'Melissa,' which was previously published as 'George.' These Colorado school districts canceled class Thursday due to staff shortages In emails obtained by the ACLU of Colorado, board members and district officials said they were committed to conservative values, which was part of the platform on which board members had run for the office. '[P]ersonally, LGBTQ is only regarding sexual preference which doesn't belong in any school. . . . Our constituents will not be happy about us returning any of these books. That is who we are beholden to,' said former Board Vice President Heather Booth in an email obtained by the ACLU and shared in the lawsuit. The district judge noted that there is legal precedent barring school boards from removing library books 'simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to 'prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.'' A status conference in the case is scheduled for March 31. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
