Library and Banned Books News 6-20-2025
Action items; thoughts on the Supreme Court; Florida; Utah. Good news in Tennessee, New York, Oregon, and Iowa!
Hello Friends,
I have lots going on this week. My novel Keep Sweet officially launches tomorrow. I also have an essay in an anthology on sibling loss and grief, The Loss of a Lifetime, which launched on Tuesday. We had a very emotional reading by the authors on Wednesday. It was recorded, so I think I will be able to share it soon.
Every Library often has ideas for actions to support libraries. While there are so many actions to take right now in so many areas, I think Every Library makes it easy to spread the word about library and book banning issues. I’m including a bit from a recent email. Just to be clear: While the GAO found that it was illegal to withhold IMLS funding, a greater issue is that the Trump administration wants to shut down the IMLS altogether.
From Every Library
[T]he Government Accountability Office found that IMLS, led by Sonderling, violated the 1974 Impoundment Control Act.
GAO determined that Sonderling violated that law by withholding funds that Congress appropriated for grants and contracts to support libraries and museums across the country.
Trump's proposed budget completely eliminates Federal funding for libraries.
Sign the petition today to show your support for IMLS then, click to share it on Bluesky, Facebook, Twitter, Threads, and Linkedin!
GAO General Counsel Edda Emmanuelli Perez wrote in her decision on Monday that IMLS officials did not cooperate with the watchdog’s investigation.
However, based on public information, including sworn statements from the agency’s acting leader as part of ongoing lawsuits, she wrote that IMLS, so far this year, has been “improperly withholding appropriated funds from obligation and expenditure.”
EMAIL CONGRESS
Contact Congress to stand against Trump's 2026 budget proposal to defund IMLS then click to share this campaign on Facebook, Bluesky, Threads, Twitter, and Linkedin!
. . .
We want to be clear: if the administration wants to shut down IMLS or redirect its mission, it must go to Congress. The courts in the Rhode Island case and GAO have now affirmed that neither Executive Orders nor internal policy changes are substitutes for the legislative process.
Thoughts on the Supreme Court and Book Challenges
Forthcoming Supreme Court Ruling Could Have Chilling Effect on Public Education and Publishing from School Library Journal
In 2022, Montgomery County (MD) Public Schools added inclusive picture books to its elementary school language arts curriculum.
The nine books noted in the briefs to the Court are Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope by Jodie Patterson; Intersection Allies: We Make Room for All by Chelsea Johnson, LaToya Council, and Carolyn Choi, illustrated by Ashley Seil Smith; Jacob’s Room to Choose by Sarah Hoffman and Ian Hoffman; Love, Violet by Charlotte Sullivan Wild; My Rainbow by Trinity Neal and Deshanna Neal; Pride Puppy by Robin Stevenson; Prince & Knight by Daniel Haack; Uncle Bobby’s Wedding by Sarah S. Brannen; and What Are Your Words? by Katherine Locke.
The district allowed parents to opt out of instruction with the books, but when it became clear that the policy created too much of a burden for teachers, as well as resulted in high absenteeism and the possible stigmatization of LGBTQIA+ kids and families, the district removed the opt-out option.
Three couples sued the district, saying the inability for them to opt out was unconstitutional that interfered with their free exercise of religion and free speech. The parents, who are Muslim, Roman Catholic, and Ukrainian Orthodox, asked for a preliminary injunction, requiring the district to notify them when the books would be used in the classroom while the case was litigated. It was declined.
The presiding Federal Court of Appeals judge noted there was no “evidentiary link showing that the Storybooks are being implemented in a way that directly or indirectly coerces the Parents or their children to believe or act contrary to their religious faith.”
Despite this, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the plaintiffs’ appeal before the case had gone through the lower courts, and the way the books are being used has yet to be established in the case. …
The Democratic Justices shared the concerns about where this could lead during oral arguments. Could parents object to being taught by a teacher with a photo of their same-sex marriage on their desk? Would they want to opt out of other lessons in other subjects that they say runs counter to their religious beliefs?
Justice Elena Kagan expressed concern that the next step is parents not being satisfied with the opt out and instead deciding it’s unfair for their children to have to leave the classroom and objecting to the materials themselves. That would go beyond LGBTQIA+ picture books and include topics such as evolution in biology classes. The plaintiffs’ attorney said that opt outs were rare in those situations and would be limited even if the Court ruled in favor of the parents.
But the lawyer for the district told Kagan, “If you constitutionalize it, people will invoke it.”
How a Single Court Case Could Determine the Future of Book Banning in America from Lit Hub
To be clear, the following article is NOT about the case before the Supreme Court. But we have been following Little v. Llano County from the start. This article is wondering what will happen if it lands before the court.
Anthony Aycock on “Little v. Llano County” and the Increasingly Imperiled Freedom to Read in America
Only one library book ban case has ever been decided by the U.S. Supreme Court: Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico (1982). In 1975, the Island Trees school board in Nassau County, New York removed nearly a dozen books from the high school and junior high libraries. A group of students led by senior Steven Pico sued the school, losing at trial but winning on appeal.
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the books were improperly banned, but only three of those five justices thought that the First Amendment granted students the “right to read,” making a constitutional violation the crux of their argument. This lack of accord makes Pico a weak precedent. Indeed, lower level courts have been disagreeing with it ever since.
Pico has not been revisited in over 40 years. I fear it will soon. Book ban cases have ramped up in recent years, and judges are flying blind, continuing to make guidance-free rulings. All it takes is one ultra-determined litigant to push through a test case, a Pico 2.0. When that happens, will the Supreme Court unequivocally recognize a constitutional freedom to read? Or will it strike a blow for censorship?
That case may finally have arrived. On May 23, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its ruling in Little v. Llano County, a case that began in 2021, when a group of Llano County, Texas residents began agitating for certain books to be removed from the public library system—books they saw as “obscene” and “pornographic.” These included Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen (a book often banned because the main character, Mickey, appears in the nude), Robie H. Harris and Michael Emberley’s It’s Perfectly Normal (a sex education book for pre-teens), and Dawn McMillan’s I Broke My Butt (“cheeky sequel to the international bestseller I Need a New Butt”).
Utah
Free speech group demands Utah allow students to have personal copies of banned books at school from the Salt Lake Tribune
You likely remember that Utah has banned 18 books from public schools statewide. It has also determined that students may not bring any of those books on to school campuses. So, here we have a First Amendment rights issue.
A free-speech advocacy group is demanding the Utah State Board of Education change its guidance that says students can’t bring personal copies of banned books to school — arguing the guidance violates the students’ First Amendment rights.
The group — The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE — sent a letter Monday to Davina Sauthoff, the USBE’s library media specialist. FIRE asserts that while “obscene” materials and speech are not protected under the First Amendment, Utah’s definition of “sensitive materials” doesn’t meet the legal standard for obscenity — so students still have the right to bring those books to school.
“[Schools] are not just removing books from classroom instruction — they are entirely banning students’ personal possession of non-obscene books on all school property,” the letter states.
Florida
In fear of retaliation, school districts pull library books Florida deems 'pornographic' from the Tallahassee Democrat
Florida listed more than 50 books it identified as 'pornographic.'
We’ve followed the situation in Hillsborough and Escambia Counties. This article also includes the situation on other Florida counties.
Welcome to Pensacola, Florida, America’s Book-Banning Capital from Literary Hub
Ira Wells on the Emergence and Impact of a Powerful Political Movement In Service to Censorship
Right-wing book bans, rife in Escambia and throughout the South, are the product of a political moment. In the wake of the MAGA movement’s dual 2020 loss of both the Trump presidency and the subsequent campaign of election denial, the conservative operative Steve Bannon called for a new electoral strategy.
Bannon believed that Trump had been betrayed by elites within the Republican party. It was now time to flip the script. On his War Room podcast, Bannon outlined plans for a MAGA comeback, which would involve seizing control of the apparatus of municipal and state governance from the bottom up. He urged his audience, which can number in the tens of millions, to focus on the lower rungs of American democracy: positions on finance boards, city councils, state legislatures, and libraries.
“It’s going to be a fight, but this is a fight that must be won,” Bannon declared. “We’re going to take this back village by village…precinct by precinct.”
Bannon would devote particular attention to schools. “The path to save the nation is very simple—it’s going to go through the school boards,” he stated in May 2022. A growing cohort of American parents, Bannon believed, exhausted by the pandemic and the roiling social conflicts of recent years, were fed up with mask mandates, increasingly strident progressive racial politics that upended the nation’s founding narratives, and an evolving vocabulary of gender inclusivity that could make your head spin.
Schools were where these vectors of outrage converged. They also offered low barriers to entry, democratically speaking: many board positions were not hotly contested, and almost anyone could show up at a school board meeting and command their five minutes of airtime. MAGA Republicans should, as Bannon was fond of saying, “flood the zone.”
Here’s Some Good News
New York
NYCLU Cheers State Legislature Passage of Freedom To Read Act from NYCLU
NEW YORK, NY – In response to the surge of book bans across New York State, today [June 18] the New York State Senate passed the Freedom to Read Act, a bill that gives school library staff the authority to curate diverse, inclusive, and developmentally-appropriate book selections that respect students’ rights to learn free from viewpoint discrimination.
Oregon
Gov. Tina Kotek signs new Oregon laws on book bans, health care and veterans' services from KGW8
The bill would essentially ban book bans by prohibiting school district and libraries from removing books or instructional materials based solely on the author or subject belonging to a protected class, such as race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, marital status, age and disability.
Parents, guardians and school staff can still file a complaint if they believe materials are inappropriate due to content, and a district committee will evaluate whether it should be removed or not. FULL TEXT.
Iowa
Bettendorf 7th grader wins national award for book ban documentary from WQAD8
BETTENDORF, Iowa — A Bettendorf Middle School student received a national award for a documentary he made.
Adrian Gillette, a seventh grader, was recently awarded the bronze medal in the junior documentary category at the National History Day competition in Washington, D.C. His 10-minute film focused on Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico, the only school book banning case ever heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The documentary was one of just 18 student works screened at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. last week. As part of his third place finish, Gillette was also selected for mentorship through the Next Generation Angels Awards program, which includes a virtual meeting opportunity with award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns.
Gillette said he chose the case because of its current relevance, citing a surge in book bans across the country.
[Vic’s note: the Supreme Court case mentioned in articles above is about opting out of lessons where diverse books are part of the instruction.]
Tennessee
Silence Is Not an Option For These Student Advocates from School Library Journal
Julia Garnett never wanted to get involved. The high school junior disliked public speaking, and, as a competitive athlete, didn’t want to skip soccer practice.
But the 17-year-old couldn’t sit by silently while her school district, just outside Nashville, TN, considered a ban on A Place Inside of Me by Zetta Elliott—a picture book that deals with a young Black boy’s emotions after a police shooting.
“I went online and read it and was so confused about why it was going to be banned,” Garnett remembers. That night, in the fall of 2022, she wrote a speech defending the book. The next day, Garnett, accompanied by her dad, attended her first school board meeting. …
She is not alone. As books, curricula, and diverse voices are being censored, excised, and, in some states, even outlawed, Garnett and other young advocates like her are making themselves heard through walkouts and other protests, appearing in front of school boards and local legislatures demanding change, and turning to national groups for guidance and support. Their voices have come together to form a powerful chorus of resistance and movement to effect change across the country.
Thank you times 1,000 for posting the banned book news, Victoria. I'm an avid supporter of the freedom to read, and my first novel, which I'm publishing at the end of this year, has book bans as a central theme.
Just preordered your book!!