Kayla Padilla, Texas Public Radio; Llano County Library will remain open despite effort to shut it down over book ban
"After a contentious special meeting on Thursday, Llano County Judge Ron Cunningham announced that the county's library system will stay open.
“The library will remain open. We will try this in the courts — not through social media or through news media,” Cunningham said.
Commissioners considered whether or not they would shut down their library system rather than complying with a federal judge’s order that they must return 17 banned books to the library shelves.
The banned books, which include themes of LGBTQ+ identity and race, were removed last year without public input, after Llano County officials declared them pornographic and sexually explicit...
Most protestors stood outside for the duration of the meeting because of limited room inside the court. One library advocate, Carolyn Foote, said that the removal of the 17 books is a “slippery slope.”
Foote is co-founder of the FReadom Fighters, a group of Texas librarians fighting book bans and advocating for students.
“That’s why you have rules and policies — because censorship really isn’t a partisan issue. And partly, the Supreme Court supports libraries in that. There’s a ruling called Pico v. Island Trees that says you cannot remove materials just because you don’t like the ideas in them,” she explained."
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