Breaking News

 

By Gretchen Garrity

Some very good news out of Florida. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida Tallahassee Division, has ruled in Peter Parnell, et al., v. School Board of Escambia County, Florida that schools have the right to include or exclude whatever books they deem appropriate. Local control at last!

The lawsuit revolved around the removal of the book "And Tango Makes Three," which tells the story of two same-sex penguins who raised an egg. Parnell is the gay author of the children's book. According to Wikipedia, "The book does not take a stance on same-sex marriage, but rather the validity of same-sex families.^"

Notice how 'clever' that statement is--it doesn't take a stance on same-sex marriage per se, but does take a stance on the "validity of same-sex families."

According to the Final Order, which liberally quotes the recent court decision regarding Little v. Llano County (reported HERE), "After a hearing on several motions to dismiss, the court dismissed all claims against the Florida Education Commissioner and members of the Florida Board of Education for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. ECF No. 151. It dismissed individual-capacity claims against the Escambia County Superintendent for the same reason. Id. It dismissed claims against the Lake County Superintendent in her individual capacity based on qualified immunity, and it dismissed official-capacity claims against her and the Escambia County Superintendent as duplicative of claims against the respective School Boards. Id. It dismissed claims against the Lake County School Board on the merits, based on Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978). Id. Finally, it dismissed for lack of standing Plaintiffs’ claims challenging the constitutionality of a Florida statute Plaintiffs contended caused their harm. Id. That left the Escambia County School Board as the sole Defendant, and it left only Plaintiffs’ First Amendment claims regarding Tango’s removal. Count One alleges that removing Tango violated the authors’ First Amendment speech rights by discriminating based on content and viewpoint. ECF No. 61. Count Two alleges that the removal violated B.G.’s First Amendment right to receive information. Id.This order resolves those claims."

Please note that so far, every single claim the plaintiffs brought were dismissed. That bogus ALA claim that someone has the "right to receive information" by forcing librarians, schools and library boards to carry specific books, is about to be gutted. Read on.

While the Court held that the student, B.G., had standing on Count Two, the Court eventually ruled, "The board’s lead argument is that school library curation does not implicate any students’ or authors’ First Amendment rights at all. Thus, the argument continues, even if the board removed a book based on its viewpoint, the removal would not be unlawful. I agree, and that is enough to resolve this case. I conclude, as the en banc Fifth Circuit recently did, that a public library’s removal of books does not implicate the First Amendment right to receive information. Little v. Llano County, 138 F.4th 834, 850 (5th Cir.) (en banc), cert. pending, No. 25-284 (2025). Nor does it implicate any author’s First Amendment rights."

Note how the Florida Court refers to Little v. Llano County, which has a cert pending to the Supreme Court. The Court said in part, "In that case, a plurality held “that a public library’s collection decisions are government speech.” Id. at 865 (plurality). It did so after examining numerous precedents..." 

Further, it stated, "In the end, the Little plurality concluded 'a public library’s collection decisions are government speech.' Id. at 865. It did so based on 'precedents teaching that a speaker, including a government speaker, engages in expressive activity by selecting and presenting a curated collection of third-party speech,' its conclusion (quoted above) that a library collection does not constitute a public forum, and its consideration of the Shurtleff factors, 'which show that libraries’ collection decisions have traditionally expressed libraries’ own views about what constitutes worthwhile literature.'” Id.6

In its 18-page decision, the Court referenced the case of United States v. American Library Association, Inc., which "examined" the role of libraries in our nation. "It recognized that public libraries 'pursue the worthy missions of facilitating learning and cultural enrichment,' that they 'must have broad discretion to decide what material to provide to their patrons,' and that they 'collect only those materials deemed to have "requisite and appropriate quality." Id. at 203-04 (cleaned up). In other words, curating a library inherently requires an 'exercise of judgment in selecting the material' in the library, so 'forum analysis and heightened judicial scrutiny are incompatible' with the role of a public library. Id. at 205. Libraries do not exist primarily to encourage diverse views of private speakers or to 'provide a public forum for the authors of books.' Id. at 206. Instead, libraries collect books that the government deems to be of 'requisite and appropriate quality.'” Id.

The Left is going bonkers and screeching about "free speech" and "First Amendment Rights" and so on. I know that "And Tango Makes Three" was a particular favorite of MSU Professor Elizabeth Dudash-Buskirk. I can't access her Facebook page to see how she is reacting, however, because I was censored off Facebook. But I imagine she is quite upset that her book is not enjoying required accessibility in Escambia County, FL schools.

Let me tell you, though, the defendants in these cases go through hell because of these lawsuits. I want to thank one in particular--Vicki Baggett. A longtime teacher in Escambia County, Vicki has withstood the kind of lawfare and defamation that makes most people shrink from taking a stand. I applaud her. Bravo, Vicki and may God richly bless you. Here she is in a recent interview:

Judgment below:
Final Order
Court Judgment

The "right to receive information"

From: ALA

 

By Gretchen Garrity

The American Library Association and their comrades in the education, publishing and political institutions have suffered a setback in the Library Wars. 

The United State Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has decided the case of Little v. Llano County.

In its introduction, the court laid out the case:

"Patrons of a county library in Texas sued the librarian and other officials, alleging they removed 17 books because of their treatment of racial and sexual themes. The district court ruled that defendants abridged plaintiffs’ “right to receive information” under the Free Speech Clause and ordered the books returned to the shelves. On appeal, a divided panel of our court affirmed in part. We granted en banc rehearing."

En banc means the whole court, rather than a smaller panel, heard the case. In their decision, the Court held:

"We now reverse the preliminary injunction and render judgment dismissing the Free Speech claims. We do so for two separate reasons.

First, plaintiffs cannot invoke a right to receive information to challenge a library's removal of books. Yes, Supreme Court precedent sometimes protects one's right to receive someone else's speech. But plaintiffs would transform that precedent into a brave new right to receive information from the government in the form of taxpayer-funded library books. The First Amendment acknowledges no such right."

Further, the Court stated:

"The only sensible course—and, happily, the one supported by reams of precedent—is to hold that the right to receive information does not apply here. A plaintiff may not invoke that right to challenge a library's decisions about which books to buy, which books to keep, or which books to remove."

And then there is this:

"Finally, we note with amusement (and some dismay) the unusually over-caffeinated arguments made in this case. Judging from the rhetoric in the briefs, one would think Llano County had planned to stage a book burning in front of the library. Plaintiffs and amici warn of “book bans,” “pyres of burned books,” “totalitarian regimes,” and the “ Index librorum prohibitorum.” One amicus intones: “Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people.”

"Over-caffeinated arguments." LOL. Thank goodness the court took notice of the nutty rhetoric that has been floated for ever so long now. The revolutionary stridency, the bosom-heaving self-righteousness of the activists, was disposed of in the Court's decision.

Reason has an article about the decision HERE. They have a followup HERE. And Bloomberg Law covers the decision HERE.

The decision is not without controversy, and some of the judges issued a dissent. However, it seems we are seeing a return to a more traditional interpretation of the First Amendment, rather than the "brave new right" that the ALA has been pushing for years. Most likely, this or another such case will find its way to the Supreme Court.

It was noted that if individuals or groups have a First Amendment right to "receive information," aka force public libraries to keep certain books, then there is a similar First Amendment "right" to compel public libraries to add certain books, as well. One can see the tension.

And, it must be said, a public library is only as good as those who are curating the collection--which makes it very important for citizens to know who is adding which books to its collection, and how those books are being classified and shelved.

And, just for nice, more common sense:

• To Ban Or Not To Ban Is Not Even The Question...

Finishing up with WLA's Dan Kleinman who tweets about how Book Riot (comrades of ALA) is promoting Pride Month in June. There's a plethora of information in the thread, and Dan pulls no punches. He has been at this fight for over two decades. He knows the stakes:

If they aren’t trying to indoctrinate and gr[][]m school children, why are librarians broadcasting this:

"How to Prepare for Pride Month in Libraries 2025"

Written by Kelly Jensen who hates parents, children, and Trump.

parenting moms dads

Link follows in thread. pic.twitter.com/XTE6o5K0cS

— Dan Kleinman of SafeLibraries® (@SexHarassed) May 25, 2025