Appeals court reversal puts book decision back in Llano County’s hands
The Llano County Library, 102 E. Haynie St. in Llano. Staff photo by Dakota Morrissiey
Several books that were returned to Llano County Library shelves by court order might not be there for long. It is now the county’s decision whether or not to reshelve the books, some of which feature LGBTQ-plus issues and one a history of the Ku Klux Klan in America.
On May 23, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a previous decision that sided with plaintiffs in an ongoing free speech lawsuit, filed in 2022 against county leaders, over 17 books that were removed from the library system without following standard procedure.
A 2024 appeals court ruling ordered eight out of those 17 books be returned to shelves on the grounds the removals were motivated by a desire to “prevent access” to particular viewpoints.
Llano County Library System Director Amber Milum, who is one of the defendants in the lawsuit, said the eight books were still on shelves as of Wednesday, May 28, as the county considers its next step.
“We’re excited to move forward,” she told DailyTrib.com.
Plaintiffs in the suit, Leila Green Little, et al. v. Llano County, et al., are now faced with two choices: They can either let the ruling stand unchallenged or appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court by Aug. 28, making it a national issue.
Lead plaintiff and Llano County resident Leila Green Little said she and her team are still deciding.
“I would encourage everybody to contemplate what (the court’s decision going unchallenged) would mean,” she told DailyTrib.com on Wednesday.
In an emailed statement following the appeals court reversal, Little also argued the appeals court ruling by a full panel of judges could set a precedent that would support public libraries adding or removing books to their collections based on any criteria they choose, which could “invite naked censorship.”
DailyTrib.com reached out to Llano County Judge Ron Cunningham about the court’s recent decision, but did not hear back from him by this story’s publication deadline.
The May 23 decision also removed four defendants from the lawsuit: former Llano County Library Advisory Board members Rhonda Schneider, Rochelle Wells, Gay Baskin, and Bonnie Wallace, who are no longer on the board. During their tenure, they oversaw the removal of the 17 books from the Llano County Library System, which instigated the April 2022 lawsuit by a group of residents against members of the advisory board, the Llano County judge and commissioners, and Milum.
Legal drama background
Read more about the lawsuit and its history in the following DailyTrib.com stories:
- Llano County closes library system to review content of children’s materials, December 2021
- Anti-censorship group forms to oppose Library Advisory Board, March 2022
- Llano County faces federal lawsuit over censorship in library system, April 2022
- Banned books back in circulation in Llano, April 2023
- Llano libraries remain open—for now, April 2023
- Fired Kingsland librarian files civil suit against Llano County, March 2024
- Stephen King, James Patterson show support for plaintiffs in library lawsuit, September 2024
- Full appeals court hears library case, September 2024
The May 23 decision
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans made its decision based on two points, according to the ruling:
1. “First, plaintiffs cannot invoke a right to receive information to challenge a library’s removal of books. Yes, Supreme Court precedent sometimes protects one’s right to receive someone else’s speech. But plaintiffs would transform that precedent into a brave new right to receive information from the government in the form of taxpayer-funded library books. The First Amendment acknowledges no such right.”
2. “Second, a library’s collection decisions are government speech and therefore not subject to Free Speech challenges. Many precedents teach that someone engages in expressive activity by curating and presenting a collection of third-party speech. People do this all the time. Think of the editors of a poetry compilation choosing among poems, or a newspaper choosing which editorials to run, or a television station choosing which programs to air. So do governments. Think of a city museum selecting which paintings or sculptures to feature in an exhibit. In the same way, a library expresses itself by deciding how to shape its collection.”
The decision was made by a full panel of 18 judges from the Fifth Circuit, rather than the partial panel of three judges that made the initial decision in June 2024.
The 2024 ruling was in partial favor of a March 2023 decision by District Judge Robert Pitman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division, who ordered all 17 removed books be returned to Llano County library shelves. The county’s legal team immediately appealed the decision, bringing it before the Fifth Circuit.
The Fifth Circuit’s three-judge panel condemned the book removals on the grounds they were too biased.
“Government actors may not remove books from a public library with the intent to deprive patrons of access to ideas with which they disagree,” reads the June 2024 opinion.
The 17 books removed from Llano County Library System shelves, as well as its online system, range in content from children’s books about farting to transgender biographies and America’s racial history.
The eight books that were ordered back to library shelves by the Fifth Circuit’s first ruling are:
- “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson
- “They Called Themselves the K.K.K: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
- “Spinning” by Tillie Walden
- “Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen” by Jazz Jennings
- “Shine” by Lauren Myracle
- “Under the Moon: A Catwoman Tale” by Lauren Myracle
- “Gabi, a Girl in Pieces” by Isabel Quintero
- “Freakboy” by Kristin Elizabeth Clark
The nine other removed books not included in that decision are:
- “In the Night Kitchen” by Maurice Sendak
- “It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health” by Robie Harris
- “My Butt is So Noisy!” by Dawn McMillan
- “I Broke my Butt!” by Dawn McMillan
- “I Need a New Butt!” by Dawn McMillan
- “Larry the Farting Leprechaun” By Jane Bexley
- “Gary the Goose and His Gas on the Loose” by Jane Bexley
- “Freddie the Farting Snowman” by Jane Bexley
- “Harvey the Heart Had Too Many Farts” by Jane Bexley
2 thoughts on “Appeals court reversal puts book decision back in Llano County’s hands”
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Odd, estimates are that there have been, to date, more than 150,000,000 titles published. County libraries can house but a few thousand at a time. So then, are my First Amendment rights impacted because I can’t go to my county library and take home the other 149,085,000 or so titles? Or, is it just the ones that a particular group want’s to force onto the children’s shelf that should enjoy First Amendment protection?
Hopefully the money-making lawsuit will come to a stand still soon and logic will prevail.
A public library should have a duty to limit books based on appropriateness (children go there) and quality since they are publicly funded.
Censorship and banned are incorrectly used here. These books are still available just not in the public library.
I fully support using criteria guidelines for book selection in a public library. It’s probably hungry lawyers that stirred up this drawn out drama (good word for it).