30-05-2025
- General
- Wall Street Journal
No More Library Police in Texas
If a public library culls children's books that have drawn complaints—such as 'Larry the Farting Leprechaun' and 'Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen'—do local fans of Larry and Jazz have a First Amendment case? In a decision last summer, a panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals welcomed such lawsuits, with two judges volunteering themselves for the job of library police.
Good news: The entire Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, reversed that decision last week. Ten of 17 judges held that a public library's removal of books from circulation doesn't implicate its patrons' 'right to receive information.'
