Latest news with #bookremoval
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Appeals court rules Texas library can remove books based on content
The Brief A federal appeals court ruled that public library patrons in Llano County, Texas, cannot challenge the removal of books and do not have a First Amendment right to information from a public library. The court's 10-7 decision overturns a prior injunction, stating that a library's collection is a form of government speech and therefore not subject to free speech challenges. This ruling directly contradicts a similar case in Iowa, setting up a potential challenge in the Supreme Court. A federal appeals court on Friday ruled that public library patrons in Llano County, Texas cannot challenge the removal of books from the library and do not have a First Amendment right to receive information from a public library, calling a library's collection a form of government speech. The decision from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturns the decision made by the same court in Campbell v. St. Tammany Parish School, which said students could challenge the removal of books, 30 years ago. The court ruled 10-7 in a full court decision to overturn an injunction that required a Llano County public library to return 17 books that had been removed from library shelves. What they're saying Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan penned the majority opinion where judges decided that the decisions that libraries make surround their collections is government speech and not subject to free speech challenges. Duncan compared the decision to remove books from a library collection to a museum curating their exhibits. "Take a deep breath, everyone," Duncan said in the opinion. "No one is banning (or burning) books." The opinion pointed towards briefs calling for the return of the books claiming the decision would lead to book burnings and "totalitarian regimes" and called the arguments made "unusually over-caffeinated." "If a disappointed patron can't find a book in the library, he can order it online, buy it from a bookstore, or borrow it from a friend," Duncan wrote. "All Llano County has done here is what libraries have been doing for two centuries: decide which books they want in their collections." The other side Seven of the court's judges dissented from the decision calling the removal of the books a "politically motivated" effort to "deny public access to disfavored ideas." "Public libraries have long kept the people well informed by giving them access to works expressing a broad range of information and ideas," Judge Stephen Higginson wrote in the dissent. Higginson said the majority judges had forsaken "core First Amendment principles." In 2021, a group of community members began working to have several books they deemed inappropriate removed from Llano County public library shelves. A group of seven Llano County residents filed a federal lawsuit against the county judge, commissioners, library board members and the library systems director for restricting and banning books from the three-branch library system. The lawsuit stated that the county judge, commissioners and library director removed several books off shelves, suspended access to digital library books, replaced the Llano County library board with community members in favor of book bans, halted new library book orders and allowed the library board to close its meetings to the public in a coordinated censorship campaign that violates the First Amendment and 14th Amendment. According to the suit, the defendants worked together to remove several children's books that they found inappropriate from library shelves in early fall of last year. Then, after state Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, notified the Texas Education Agency of a list of 850 books he found objectionable that were found in school libraries, some of the same titles were removed from the Llano libraries. In 2024, a divided panel from the Fifth Circuit ordered eight of the removed books returned. Both the majority opinion of the 2024 panel and the dissenting opinion from Friday's decision called the removal of the books a political decision. The books at issue in the case include "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent" by Isabel Wilkerson; "They Called Themselves the K.K.K: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group," by Susan Campbell Bartoletti; "In the Night Kitchen" by Maurice Sendak; "It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health" by Robie H. Harris; and "Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen" by Jazz Jennings. Other titles include "Larry the Farting Leprechaun" by Jane Bexley and "My Butt is So Noisy!" by Dawn McMillan. The decision from the Fifth Circuit on Friday is in direct opposition to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals which ruled in a similar case in Iowa last year. In the case to decide is Iowa's book ban could go into effect, the appeals court allowed the ban to happen, but ruled that book removal does not fall under government speech. "Contrary to defendants' contention," Judge Ralph R. Erickson wrote, "the Supreme Court has not extended the government speech doctrine to the placement and removal of books in public school libraries." The split decisions could lead to a Supreme Court challenge. The Source Information on the court's ruling comes from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and court documents. Backstory on the lawsuit comes from previous FOX 7 reporting. Information on the decision of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals' decision comes from the Associated Press. Click to open this PDF in a new window.
CNN
09-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Pentagon orders military academies to review books for possible removal
The Pentagon has ordered all military academies to identify and remove books from their libraries that deal with issues such as race, gender ideology, and other 'divisive concepts' that are now considered 'incompatible with the department's core mission,' according to a memo obtained by CNN. The memo, dated Friday, is signed by the acting deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness and also announces the creation of a temporary Academic Libraries Committee 'comprised of knowledgeable leaders, educators, and library professionals' from across the Defense Department who will help identify and 'sequester' the offending books for further review. The books must be identified and set aside for review by May 21, the memo says. The committee has already developed a list of search terms to help military leaders identify books that may need to be removed. The terms include: 'Affirmative action,' 'anti-racism,' 'allyship,' 'diversity in the workplace,' 'gender transition,' 'white privilege,' and 'critical race theory,' according to an attachment to the memo. The establishment of a special committee to review books for removal across the miliary academies marks an escalation of the Defense Department's efforts to eliminate 'diversity, equity, and inclusion' content across the military. The Naval Academy has already removed nearly 400 books from its main library in an attempt to comply with President Donald Trump's executive order in January mandating the removal of all 'diversity, equity, and inclusion' content from K-12 schools, which Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth later said also applied to military academies. The Naval Academy also canceled a lecture that author Ryan Holiday was scheduled to give to students there last month after he refused to remove slides from his planned presentation that criticized the academy's decision to remove the books, CNN reported. A tenured professor of philosophy at West Point wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times on Thursday that he was resigning after 13 years at the school because it was 'suddenly eliminating courses, modifying syllabuses and censoring arguments to comport with the ideological tastes of the Trump administration.' The professor, Graham Parsons, wrote that West Point was interpreting Hegseth's order 'broadly,' and conducting 'a sweeping assault on the school's curriculum and the faculty members' research.' In response to Parson's op-ed, Hegseth posted on X on Thursday, 'You will not be missed Professor Parsons,' and the DoD's rapid response account called Parsons 'woke.' Students and parents also told CNN last month that the anti-DEI policy is having a direct impact on students at Defense Department schools around the globe, as classes like AP Psychology and certain student clubs and books have been banned from DoD schools. The ACLU has sued DoD over the policy. Meanwhile, articles about the Holocaust, the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, cancer awareness, sexual assault and suicide prevention were among the tens of thousands either removed or flagged for removal from Pentagon websites as the department scrambled to comply with Hegseth's order. The Friday memo standing up the libraries committee said the review of the book removals would be 'deliberate' and conducted by 'experts in the fields of education and the department's mission.'
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
10 more books must be removed from SC public K-12 schools, board rules
From left to right, state Board of Education Chair David O'Shields, attorney John Tyler, Chair-Elect Rita Allison, Joette Johnson and Joyce Crimminger hear a report during a meeting Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. The board voted Tuesday, May 6, 2025, to remove 10 more books from public school libraries. (Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette) COLUMBIA — Another 10 books must be removed from school library shelves, the state Board of Education decided Tuesday, a month after questioning its own regulation banning 'sexual conduct' from K-12 public schools. The 15-2 vote brings the total number of books librarians have been required to remove from shelves to 21 since the regulation went into effect last June. Another six books have been allowed to stay, one with the stipulation that parents must give approval for their children to check it out. Books removed Tuesday Source: Instructional Materials Review Committee The board hesitated to remove the books from shelves at its meeting April 1 amid misgivings from some members about the frequency and content of the book challenges coming before them. Board members gave no public explanation for the sudden change of heart. The board took a single, voice vote to remove the 10 books with no discussion as part of a broader agenda that included several other approvals. Tony Vincent and David O'Shields, the two members to say 'no,' questioned the regulation during a meeting last month, saying it required the board to remove books from shelves based on as little as a few pages in novels of several hundred pages. 'Looking at these books outside of the arc of their full stories is a mistake, in my view,' Vincent, a minister in Seneca, said at the time. He declined to comment further on his vote Tuesday. Before the public meeting began, members had legal questions about the regulation answered during a closed-door session, which seemed to assuage some members' concerns, said Christian Hanley, who leads the committee reviewing the books. Board members have an obligation to follow the regulation they passed, Hanley told the SC Daily Gazette after the meeting. The regulation says any books containing sexual material, no matter how brief, must come off school shelves. The question is not whether board members like the book or feel it has value. Instead, board members must simply determine whether it contains any sexual material, attorneys for the state Department of Education have told the board repeatedly. 'I think that made everyone more comfortable to say, 'Our constituents sent us here to do a job, so let's just roll up our sleeves and do what we're supposed to do and stop delaying that,'' Hanley said. Ken Richardson, who also raised concerns at the April meeting, agreed to approve this round of book removals, but he wasn't sure whether that would remain the case if more come up for consideration at future meetings, he said. Putting time and energy into vetting the books and voting whether to remove them has taken focus from the other issues the board considers, Richardson, former chairman of the Horry Georgetown Technical College board, told the Gazette on Tuesday afternoon. The books that have come up for consideration, in many cases, are rarely checked out in his own district, he said. One parent in Beaufort County has brought 14 of the challenges the state board has considered, and she could bring many more, after bringing 97 requests to remove books to her local school board before the regulation went into place. That means the challenges could continue until the board has considered all 97 books. And Richardson has heard from at least one other parent claiming to have found hundreds more books that could potentially violate the regulation, he said. 'At some point, enough is enough,' Richardson said. Richardson stopped short of suggesting the board change the regulation. His concern lies less with the idea of the regulation, which the board approved unanimously last year, and more with its implementation, he said. 'When you're trying to make decisions for the whole state, you need to think about the whole state,' Richardson said. His concerns echo those of some opponents of the regulation. Josh Malkin, an attorney for the state American Civil Liberties Union, who said he worried the board is allowing one parent to make decisions for everyone. 'This is problematic and counter to the foundational democratic ideals of public education,' Malkin said in a statement soon after the vote. Tuesday's decision makes South Carolina the state with the most books removed from schools at a state level, according to PEN America. South Carolina is one of three states with a regulation allowing the removal of books statewide. Tennessee, one of the other states, has removed no books at the state level. Utah has removed 17, according to PEN America, which tracks book removals across the country.
