Federal Judge Tells Colorado School District To Return ‘Challenged’ Books To Its Libraries
from the stop-being-so-shitty dept
I’m not going to rehash the entire recent history of book bans/book challenges in this nation. Suffice to say that ever since Trump first took office in 2017, there’s been a significant increase in the number of suddenly “concerned” citizens seeking to remove books from libraries and a corresponding, equally-significant increase in legislation seeking to enact actual book bans. All this from the “party of free speech.”
In the Elizabeth School District of Colorado, the censorship effort took this form: a committee was formed last summer to determine which books in school libraries dealt with “sensitive topics.” The committee identified 19 books that met this extremely vague criteria. Unsurprisingly, these were some of the books the board flagged as problematic:
The removed books primarily featured Black, brown and LGBTQ people, the ACLU said, including “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas, “Beloved” and “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini and “#Pride: Championing LGBTQ Rights” by Rebecca Felix.
According to the district board of regents, the targeted books depicted things it felt kids shouldn’t be exposed to — things like “racism, discrimination, mental illness and sexual content.” The books the board pulled (and flagged for review with post-it notes on pages dealing with these subjects) are the same ones being targeted all around this country. None of the members of the board were likely familiar with the subject matter. Most likely, a few of them received emails from “concerned” parents with the subject line “FWD:FWD:FWD:FWD:FWD Dangerous Books Your Kids MIght,, be Reading!!!”
The ACLU sued the school district. And, at least at this point, it has won. The federal judge handling the case has ordered the district to un-remove these books and stop being so stupid while the court busies itself with making this injunction permanent. (Somehow the Denver Post was unable to locate the court order displayed prominently on the ACLU of Colorado website, so we’ll link to the ACLU here and give it the credit its due, both for the win and for posting a copy of the court order.)
The decision [PDF] runs 45 pages and takes care to point out everywhere the school board went wrong, ranging from its baseless, self-serving claims that damning email conversations were “hearsay” to misrepresenting the standards for obtaining preliminary injunctions. Oh, and there’s also the thing where the school board tries to pretend determining what books can be in libraries is “government speech” that can’t be held to First Amendment standards.
That last argument simply doesn’t work. A library carrying a copy of Mein Kampf wouldn’t be assumed to be representative of the views of the government funding the library. And yet, that’s what the government (in the form of the school district) attempts to claim here in hopes of securing its censorship.
Then there are the emails. No wonder the board of regents wanted these treated as inadmissible hearsay. This one, sent from board of regents director Heather Booth to Superintendent Snowberger, says the quiet part loud. (Emphasis in the original.)
It’s crucial that as we navigate these discussions, we remain mindful of the promises we made and the values we pledged to support. By doing so, we can maintain our integrity and ensure that our actions align with the expectations of those who elected us. As I like to say “we need to keep politics out of the classroom and away from the kids”. However conservative values are exactly what we are and plan to continue to bring into the district.
That one gives the whole game away. Booth doubled down with another email, one that cc’ed the entire board of regents:
[I]n an email between Director Booth and a graduate of the District, Director Booth justified the book removal, stating that, “[a]s an elected official committed to conservative values for our children, I feel a strong obligation to honor the promises made during my campaign.”
And then tripled down:
Director Booth responded, “[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.”
If anyone owns this federal court loss, it’s Director Heather Booth. Every example cited by the court contains one of her emails.
These five examples strongly suggest that the District’s motivations behind removing the 19 books is blatantly unconstitutional under Pico and other precedents.
And here’s why the district must put the so-called “challenged” books back on the shelves:
It is unconstitutional—under both the federal and Colorado Constitutions—to remove books from a school library merely because the District “disagree[s] with the views expressed in the books.”
Viewpoint discrimination has always been a non-starter in federal courts. That the district thought otherwise is problematic. So is its attempt to defend its actions, using tax dollars forcibly contributed to it by “constituents” Director Booth seems to feel are so loyal they’ll never realize they’re being steadily fucked by their incompetent representatives.
The Constitution lives to fight another day and, at least for now, students will have access to books that were, for lack of a more concise word, “banned” by people for no other reason than they didn’t like what they contained.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, book ban, book challenge, censorship, colorado, elizabeth school district
Comments on “Federal Judge Tells Colorado School District To Return ‘Challenged’ Books To Its Libraries”
In before Pam Bondi’s plastic ass chimes in by asking, “Who does the judge work for”.
'Sexual preference has no business being in schools unless it's MY preference!'
Director Booth responded, “[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.”
If sexual orientation(not preference as the bigot wants to claim) has no business being referenced in books that kids have access to then that would also apply to heterosexual orientation and relationships, since that is also a sexual orientation.
Strange how the bigots who claim that they’re banning books not because of their bigotry but because they’re just so very dedicated to keeping ‘sexual’ content out of the hands of kids never apply their own standard to their ‘sexual’ content of choice.
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Too bad no one seems to realize this, as we globally introduce laws to censor all queer content online under the guise of safety (and also de facto banning porn while we’re at it.)
Should someone stop this and help make better legislation? Yes.
Will anyone succeed? Not at this rate.
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That comes down to the kind of binary thinking that conservatives love: There’s “normal” (their cultural “default”) and “everything else”.
For example, conservatives think there are two genders: “normal” and “female”. There are also two religions: “normal” and “anti-Christian”. And there are also two races: “normal” and “not White”. Conservative ideology is where, on a long enough timeline, nuance is killed and buried by black-and-white authoritarian thinking.
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They’re also obsessed with other people’s genitals. They legitimately can’t hear “gay” without picturing gay sex, and they think everybody else is the same way. That’s why they think any acknowledgement that gay people exist is inherently sexual and inappropriate for children.
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i think it goes further, in that they picture teh ghey secks as involving themselves. And whether they like that imagining or not, they are filled with disgust, not even because unfamiliar! squick!, but because they have been trained by themselves and others to require feeling disgust as part of the fucking stupid identity marker they have chosen.
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They’re especially obsessed with trans people’s genitals, which is why they’re so worried about trans people being in sports for girls/women and often demanding both genital checks and gender tests for any girl/woman who “looks like a trans”. That obsession also crosses over with their obsession with children’s genitals—which, curiously enough, doesn’t cross over with the idea of supporting age-appropriate sex education (which is often how kids who are being sexually abused learn they’re being sexually abused).
It’s weird as all hell and everyone who doesn’t share those obsessions should be saying so all the live-long day.
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Good, because regulators and the US congress are coming to kill all internet platforms, so we might as well go back to reading.
A few disagreements...
The gist of “Mein Kampf” is contagious and based on the old “the others are at fault for our problems and need to be purged” that has worked on the tribal nature of humans since stone age times. That makes it important to teach how this works and prepare the pupils against the pied pipers; and a teachers’ library should have a copy, preferably a commented one, available.
You won’t get rid of the roots of fascism and xenophobia and chauvinism by burying and pretending human’s basic nature is better than that and locking away the tree of knowledge is all that it takes to get back to paradise.
The whole point of civic education is viewpoint discrimination. Education fundamentally cannot avoid taking a stand.
Just not such a fucked-up stand those idiots call “conservative values”. Damning people for who they are is the recourse of persons without pride or merit. Values are not about who you are, but what you do and achieve and what you strive and fight for.
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Thank you for showing just how badly you misunderstand the part of the article you quoted. Is it deliberate or are you just a MAGAt?
determining what books can be in libraries is “government speech” that can’t be held to First Amendment standards.
Wrrrrrrrrrrrr [/head explodes]
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Agreed. Determining what books can be in libraries is the job of the libraries, not governments, state or Federal.
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It’s adorable you think “free speech” hasn’t already been redefined by the SC to be “only what conservatives want to say.”