The Supreme Court has declined to review a Llano County, Texas, fight over local officials' removal of a group of titles from public libraries that could reverberate far beyond local bookshelves.
The big picture: The clash that pits First Amendment rights against government and parental controls is playing out across the country, with access to books concerning race, gender and identity often caught in the crosshairs.
- "Our government inserted itself into the personal reading choices of the citizens," lead plaintiff Leila Green Little told Axios in an interview on Tuesday. "If that's not something important to speak up for, I don't know what is."
Driving the news: The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up the challenge against the removal of more than a dozen books from a central Texas county's libraries, letting stand an appeals court ruling that rejected the plaintiff's argument that the right to receive information extends to public libraries.
- Writing for the 5th Circuit earlier this year, Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee, stated "[n]o one is banning" books, adding that 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."
Threat level: Retired librarian Carolyn Foote, a co-founder of the Texas FReadom Fighters, told Axios the Supreme Court's decision not to hear the case will "embolden people who are trying to restrict books from the public, from students. "
- She continued, "I do believe library users have First Amendment rights, and I do believe that local communities should be able to fight for the kinds of stories they want to see on their local shelves."
- Little said she's already seen the appeals court decision in the case she and her fellow plaintiffs brought cited elsewhere in what she said are attempts at "further censorship at public libraries and in public school libraries."
- She told Axios, "This is only the beginning."
Flashback: Little and six fellow plaintiffs sued a group of local officials in April 2022 for the removal of books such as "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent" and "They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group."
- In 2021, a Texas lawmaker turned heads with his list of hundreds of books he deemed objectionable.
- After that, some Llano County residents alerted local commissioners of what they described as "Pornographic Filth" in libraries, Axios' Asher Price reported based on emails, prompting the county judge (the chief elected official in the county) to tell the library director to pull books.
- Suzette Baker, who served as the head librarian of one of the county's libraries, alleged she was fired for insubordination after she refused to remove books from the shelves that dealt with gender and race.
Catch up quick: A federal judge in 2023 ordered Llano County officials to return the books to the shelves. But earlier this year, a majority of the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that order.
- The appeals court decision sets precedent in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
- In their request to the Supreme Court, the Llano County residents described the removals as "censorship." But the officials argued the library system was routinely weeding books and that the decisions were not related to the content within them.
- County Judge Ron Cunningham did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment.
Yes, but: "When you remove books as a librarian, it's through a weeding process ... you review sections of the library, like a whole section of the library at a time," Foote said.
- She added, "weeding is not when someone sends you a list of books they're concerned about, and you go pluck them off the shelf. "
What they're saying: Sam Helmick, the president of the American Library Association, said in a statement emailed to Axios that the Supreme Court's denial left "millions of library users" with "a diminished right to read and explore information free from government interference."
- Helmick added, "The ruling threatens to transform government libraries into centers for indoctrination instead of protecting them as hubs of open inquiry."
Go deeper: Book wars: Texas county poised to close its libraries
