The ban on this book caused a real uproar.
Schools and libraries in one part of Texas can no longer ban a book simply because it’s about “butts and farts,” a court has ruled.
The incident came after parents in conservative Llano County complained about books in the public library system. The Houston Chronicle reported.“My ass broke!” and “Larry the Farting Leprechaun.”
Local authorities then ordered the books removed from library shelves, along with other material they labeled “pornographic filth”, including a memoir about a transgender teen and two books about the history of racism in the United States.
But seven outraged users sued to have the book reinstated, arguing that removing it from the shelves violated the First Amendment. A district court sided with them, ruling that a government agency cannot ban or censor a book simply because it doesn’t like it.
After the original parent plaintiffs appealed, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an injunction ordering the library to restore the removed titles within 24 hours, The Chronicle reported.
“Librarians may consider the content of books when making curation decisions,” the judges wrote in their decision.
“But their discretion must be balanced with the First Amendment rights of patrons…. A book cannot be removed for the sole or significant reason that the decision makers do not want patrons to have access to the book’s viewpoints or message.”
In his majority opinion, Justice Jack L. Wiener Jr. wrote that librarians would still be allowed to remove books based on existing criteria, such as unpopularity, damage or age, regardless of their content.
The decision is likely to cause problems in some Texas schools, as book bans are rampant across the South. According to the American Library AssociationTexas was the state that attempted to ban or restrict books the most in 2022, with 93 attempts to restrict access to more than 2,300 books.
In his ruling, Weiner also criticized a dissent written by Judge Kyle Duncan, in which he called Duncan and Judge Leslie Southwick the “library police,” a reference to horror author Stephen King’s “Library Police.”
“As a famous free speech activist, Dr. King would surely have been horrified to see his words distorted in the name of censorship,” Weiner wrote.
“King said, ‘We have fought too many battles as a nation to defend the right of free thought to abandon it simply because a few neat-minded people with highlighters won’t approve of it.’ The defendants and their highlighters are the real library police.”
Wiener also said libraries must “continuously review their collections to ensure they are up to date” and work to “remove outdated or redundant materials” according to objective, neutral criteria.
