A federal appeals court has reversed a lower court ruling that members of the Llano County Library Advisory Board must temporarily return explicit books to their municipal library.
In the majority opinion, authored by Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan on Friday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals also found that public library patrons have no First Amendment right to challenge a library’s decision to remove books.
The massive decision cuts into nearly 30 years of Fifth Circuit precedent, first established in their 1995 Campbell v. St. Tammany Parish School Board ruling, and could set the stage for the case to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Take a deep breath, everyone. No one is banning (or burning) books,” wrote Duncan. “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.”
“All Llano County has done here is what libraries have been doing for two centuries: decide which books they want in their collections,” he continued, adding that, “If you doubt that, next time you visit the library, ask the librarian to direct you to the Holocaust Denial Section.”
The 10-7 decision reverses a preliminary ruling issued by Judge Robert L. Pitman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas in March 2023. In that ruling, Pitman found that Llano County officials were required to keep 17 books on the shelves as the case continued.
Out of the 17 books that the court has permitted Llano County officials to keep off the shelves are books targeted at young teenagers pushing LGBT ideology, like “Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen” by Jazz Jennings.
Previously, in June 2024, a three-judge panel for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the book authored by Jennings was among eight that had to be temporarily returned to shelves.
The latest Fifth Circuit ruling is not final and only applies as litigation continues.
Bonnie Wallace, vice chair of the Llano County Library Advisory Board and a defendant in the case, praised attorney Jonathan Mitchell for successfully arguing against the “erroneous” 1995 decision thus far.
“Campbell v St. Tammany Parish School Board was wrongly decided 30 years ago and needed to be thrown out and overruled!” said Wallace. “I personally hope the plaintiffs appeal to the Supreme Court so this epidemic of libraries providing sexually explicit and pervasively vulgar content to children will be terminated nationwide.”
Katherine Chiarello, an attorney for the seven plaintiffs who first sued the Llano County Library Advisory Board in 2022, told the Austin American-Statesman that they are considering their next steps in the case.
The Fifth Circuit’s ruling on Friday is likely in direct contradiction with a ruling by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in August regarding an Iowa state law that prohibits specific explicit material in schools.
Although the Eighth Circuit vacated an order blocking the Iowa law from going into effect, it also invalidated the state’s argument.
The Iowa attorney general’s office argued that a legal doctrine allowing the state to express itself without being subject to the same First Amendment restrictions as individuals justified the removal of explicit books.
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