AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal in a Texas free speech case that would have allowed local officials to remove books deemed objectionable from public libraries.
The case stems from a 2022 lawsuit filed by a group of rural Llano County residents alleging that the public library removed more than a dozen books that dealt with themes of sex, race and gender, as well as humorously touched on topics such as flatulence.
A lower federal appeals court ruled that removing the books did not violate constitutional protections for free speech.
The case is being closely watched by publishers and librarians across the country. The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case was criticized by free speech rights groups.
Elly Brinkley, a staff attorney with PEN America’s American Free Expression Project, said the Texas case has been used to ban books in other parts of the country.
“Preserving the 5th Circuit’s ruling would erode the most basic principles of free speech and allow state and local governments to exercise ideological control over people with impunity. The government has no right to tell people what they can and cannot read,” Brinkley said.
Sam Helmick, president of the American Library Association, said the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case “risks undermining the First Amendment right to read unfettered by viewpoint-based censorship by transforming government libraries into centers of indoctrination rather than protecting them as centers of open inquiry.”
The Texas case began when a group of residents asked the county library board to remove the books from circulation. The local board ordered librarians to comply, and another group of residents sued to keep the books on the shelves.
Llano County is located about 75 miles (120 kilometers) northwest of Austin, the capital of Texas, and has a population of approximately 20,000 people. It is predominantly white and conservative, with deep ties to farming and deer hunting.
Titles initially ordered to be removed include “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent” by Isabel Wilkerson; “They Called They Called the Ku Klux Klan: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti; “The Night Kitchen” by Maurice Sendak; and Robie H. Harris ‘s It’s Totally Normal: Changing Bodies, Growth, Sex, and Sexual Health; and Jazz Jennings’s Being Jazz: My Life as a (Trans) Teen.
Other works include Jane Bexley’s Larry the Farting Leprechaun and My Butt Is So Noisy! “Author: Dawn MacMillan.
A federal judge ordered the county to return some of the books in 2023, but that decision was overturned earlier this year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which covers Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
The county briefly considered closing its public library instead of returning the books to its shelves after a federal judge issued a preliminary order.
In a May 23 order, the Court of Appeal’s majority opinion said that a decision to remove a book from a library’s shelves is not a ban.
“No one bans (or burns) books. If a disappointed customer cannot find a book in a library, he can order it online, buy it from a bookstore, or borrow it from a friend,” the appeals court opinion said.
Llano County Judge Ron Cunningham, the county’s top official, did not immediately respond to an email to his office seeking comment.
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Hillel Italie is from New York City.