Federal Judge Tells Colorado School District To Return ‘Challenged’ Books To Its Libraries

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.