After a federal judge ordered its libraries to return banned books, a rural Texas county is considering closing its libraries.
Llano County, located in the heart of Texas, is holding a special meeting of its Commissioners Court to determine whether to “continue or cease operations of the current physical Llano County Library System pending further guidance from the Federal Courts.”
In 2022, seven Llano County library patrons filed a lawsuit for restricting and banning books against the county judge, Commissioners Court, and library board members, according to KVUE.
By banning the books, the library was violating patrons’ First Amendment rights by restricting access to certain books based on their messages and contents, according to the lawsuit.
On March 30, federal Judge Robert Pitman ordered the Llano County Library System to return 12 children’s books to its shelves, several of which were initially banned due to their LGBTQ and racial content, according to CNN.
Among the books ordered back to the library were It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health by Robie Harris, They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, and Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen by Jazz Jennings.
In the lawsuit, it is claimed that county commissioners replaced members of the Library Board with a new one that called for a review of all books at the library, which resulted in these titles and others being taken off shelves.
Defendants said the books were removed as part of a regular review procedure, which followed the library’s policy, according to CNN.
Judge Ron Cunningham and Commissioner Jerry Don Moss were named defendants in the case and claimed that a local community group believed the books promoted grooming behavior, according to The Hill.
“This is not about banning books, it’s about protecting the innocence of our children…and letting the parents decide what the child gets rather than having government schools indoctrinate our kids.” Keith Flaugh, a founder of the Florida Citizens Alliance, explained the rise of calls for banning books to the New York Times in December.
The library system in Llano County, which includes three branches, was given 24 hours to return the books to the shelves by Judge Robert Pittman, who ruled that the First Amendment prohibits removing books from libraries based on viewpoint or content discrimination.
The agenda for Thursday’s meeting did not list the reasoning behind the county’s proposal to close its library system. Still, the county’s recourse is likely to oppose the judge’s ruling.
The agenda did call for a discussion “regarding the continued employment and/or status of the Llano County Library System employees and the feasibility of the use of the library premises by the public.”
“The impact of costing employees their jobs there at the Llano County Library is going to really deprive residents of all sorts of services — not just access to books, but things like how to write a will, how to get a divorce, how to take care of a baby, or get a license, or learn English,” Shirley Robinson of the Texas Library Association said, according to Texas Public Radio.
Ellen Leonida, the attorney for the plaintiffs, told CNN, “It appears that the defendants would rather shut down the Library System entirely — depriving thousands of Llano county residents of access to books, learning resources, and meeting space — than make the banned books available to residents who want to read them.”
The Llano County Commissioners Court and the Library Board have filed an appeal. A hearing will take place on April 27 for potential sanctions against the defendants for not appearing for depositions, according to CNN.
The case is the latest high-profile spat surrounding book censorship, which hit a record high in 2022, according to the American Library Association (ALA).
Llano County is just one of many nationwide proposing a possible closure of its library system over the battle of controversial books.
Virginia’s Spotsylvania County has also proposed eliminating school libraries, saving $4.2 million, according to Mark Taylor, the district’s administrator.
Board member at Spotsylvania County School District, Dawn Shelley, said Taylor is using cost savings as an excuse not to deal with the books his district wants to be banned from shelves, according to The 74.
“I think they think, ‘Well, if we remove the libraries, then we don’t have to deal with those books,’” Shelley said in an interview with Stateline.
In 2022, the ALA received 1,269 demands to censor library books, twice the number it saw in 2021, according to a report from the organization.
“A book challenge is a demand to remove a book from a library’s collection so that no one else can read it. Overwhelmingly, we’re seeing these challenges come from organized censorship groups that target local library board meetings to demand removal of a long list of books they share on social media,” Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, said in a press release from the ALA.
“Their aim is to suppress the voices of those traditionally excluded from our nation’s conversations, such as people in the LGBTQIA+ community or people of color.”
