Texas county facing federal lawsuit over banned books
By Brad Brooks
LUBBOCK, Texas (Reuters) – Residents decrying censorship have filed a lawsuit in opposition to county officers in central Texas they are saying have trampled on their First Modification rights by banning books from the native public library.
The lawsuit filed on Monday in opposition to officers in Llano County says the plaintiffs have an array of political viewpoints, however are “fiercely united … of their perception that the federal government can’t dictate which books they’ll and can’t learn.”
Throughout the US, greater than 1,000 titles, largely addressing racism and LGBTQ points, have been faraway from college libraries in latest months, based on the writers’ group PEN America. Texas has been on the middle of the pattern, with Texas state lawmakers and Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, calling on faculties to examine their libraries for books seen as inappropriate for youngsters.
The Llano county lawsuit described a fierce debate that started final fall with individuals working off a state lawmaker’s record of titles to focus on county officers with removing requests.
In January, county commissioners voted to dissolve the library board, which resisted banning books. They then “packed the brand new library board with political appointees”, based on the lawsuit. In March, the pinnacle librarian at one of many branches was fired after refusing to yank books from cabinets.
The workplace of Llano County Decide Ron Cunningham, a defendant within the lawsuit and the highest elected official within the county, declined to touch upon the lawsuit. The library board didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The lawsuit says that among the many books faraway from Llano County library cabinets are “Caste: The Origins of our Discontent” by Pulitzer Prize-winning creator Isabel Wilkerson and “They Referred to as Themselves the Ok.Ok.Ok.: The Delivery of an American Terrorist Group” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti.
The lawsuit additionally says the county terminated entry to over 17,000 digital books as a result of it was unable to individually censor sure titles.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; enhancing by Donna Bryson and Tomasz Janowski)
