How a Single Court Case Could Determine the Future of Book Banning in America; Literary Hub, June 17, 2025

 Anthony Aycock, Literary Hub; How a Single Court Case Could Determine the Future of Book Banning in America

"Bottom line: in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi–the states covered by the Fifth Circuit–libraries are free to remove books for any reason. 

The plaintiffs now face a choice: accept the Fifth Circuit’s ruling or appeal to the Supreme Court. If there is an appeal, the court may not accept it. Over 7,000 cases are appealed to the high court each year, and it hears only 100-150–less than two percent. Yet I think Little v. Llano County has a good chance of making the docket. 

For one thing, the Fifth Circuit’s en banc reversal of its own panel’s ruling suggests the need for the high court to step in. Second, this Supreme Court has been eager to revisit earlier precedents. In the last few years, it has curtailed abortion protections, ended Chevron deference, and canceled affirmative action in college admissions–all long-standing, seemingly bedrock principles. Why not target Pico, especially since it wasn’t a decisive ruling to begin with?

Third, unlike most book ban cases, Little pertains not to a school library but a public one. Public libraries, according to UCLA professor Eugene Volokh, are not like school libraries. “I tentatively think a public school,” Volokh wrote, “is entitled to decide which viewpoints to promote through its own library,” whereas public libraries “are much more about giving more options to readers, rather than about teaching particular skills and attitudes to students.” 

Public libraries also serve more people–an entire county rather than a school system. Remember Judge Duncan’s belief that anyone who wants a certain book “can buy it or borrow it from somewhere else”? Llano County is small and rural, and many of its residents may not have the purchase option. For them, a book being unavailable in a library is a de facto ban. The pro-library organization EveryLibrary agrees, writing that the Fifth Circuit’s opinion “reveals an indifference to the lived reality of millions of Americans for whom public libraries are their only or primary means of access to books.” 

Here’s hoping that, if Little or any other book ban case ends up before this Supreme Court, those nine justices will consider the issue thoughtfully, creatively, and most important, impartially."

Appeals Court Ruling Raises Bar for Challenging School Book Bans; EducationWeek, May 28, 2025

Mark Walsh , EducationWeek; Appeals Court Ruling Raises Bar for Challenging School Book Bans

[Kip Currier: Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan's majority opinion statements that "“Removing a library book does not deny anyone the chance to read it...“The book has not been ‘banned.’ …People who want the book can buy it or borrow it from somewhere else.” are disingenuous and elitist. The reality is that the book has been made inaccessible.

The chief rationale for having a school library is to enable students to be able to access information and materials like books. Taxpayer monies support the acquisition of materials for school libraries. So requiring a student and their family to have to resort to buying a book that the school library would arguably be likely to have is inequitable. A hypothetical student's family's tax dollars support the purchase of school library books. However, the state's stance requires that family (or any other family!) to elect to spend additional monies on a book that their child may want to read or forego access to that book. The other option, as Judge Duncan notes, is to try to borrow that book from somewhere else, which in and of itself raises obstacles. Either way, these are unethical barriers to information that only some students are required to navigate, while other students have unfettered access to state-favored resources. That's censorship and treats some people disparately from others.

The court's rationale is also inherently problematic and potentially unconstitutional as viewpoint discrimination because the court's position prioritizes the views of some books over others. It is acknowledged that no library is able to purchase and provide access to every book. Yet, this policy favors some students and families over others by the nature of the resources that tend to be removed under bans of this nature, i.e books that include references to issues and characters of color or that are LGBTQ+-related.]

[Excerpt]

"The court’s 100-page decision in Little v. Llano Countydevotes much discussion to school library book challenges. Notably, the court expressly overruled its own 1995 precedent that suggested students could challenge the removal of books in their schools.

“Removing a library book does not deny anyone the chance to read it,” says the majority opinion by Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, an appointee of President Donald Trump. “The book has not been ‘banned.’ … People who want the book can buy it or borrow it from somewhere else.”

The majority also rejected the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico, which stemmed from a New York state school district’s 1976 removal of books from school libraries including Black Boy by Richard Wright, Soul On Ice by Eldridge Cleaver, and Go Ask Alice by an anonymous author."