Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 8 refused to hear a Texas case that could have decided the constitutionality of book bans in public libraries. In doing so, the justices left in place a lower court ruling allowing state and local governments to make decisions on book bans.
- The case, Little v. Llano County, turned on whether book removal decisions — which have swept across public schools and libraries in the past few years — are subject to the First Amendment's free speech protections.
- The case would have been the first on book bans to be heard in the Supreme Court since 1982, according to PEN America, which opposes bans and filed an amicus brief asking the court to take the case. Little v. Llano County is part of a cascade of lawsuits resulting from book removal decisions by schools and libraries in recent years.
Dive Insight:
Lawsuits over book bans in conservative states have been inching toward the Supreme Court, but so far the 8th and 5th U.S. circuit courts of appeals have both ruled in favor of allowing them.
The 8th Circuit last year permitted an Iowa book ban to take effect in schools, overturning a lower court pause on the law.
The 5th Circuit, meanwhile, heard the Llano case, which was brought by public library patrons. The appellate court first supported a preliminary injunction in 2024 to stop some book removals over racism and transgender issues, but ultimately reversed the preliminary injunction and dismissed free speech claims in May.
In its May decision, the 5th Circuit said that parties suing to stop book bans were seeking "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," their decision said. "Take a deep breath, everyone. No one is banning (or burning) books."
In documents filed with the Supreme Court in October, Llano County said public libraries regularly remove books from their shelves, and the public does not have a right to public access to a particular book.
"Public libraries continually remove books from their collections to make room for new materials and ensure that their limited shelf space is reserved for materials of requisite quality and relevance to their communities," the county said in asking that the Supreme Court not hear the case. "Libraries are supposed to discriminate based on content and viewpoint when making these curation decisions, as '[t]he librarian’s responsibility … is to separate out the gold from the garbage, not to preserve everything.'"
PEN America, which tracks book bans in schools and has separately sued to reverse them, lamented the Supreme Court's decision not to take the case, saying the move has been used to bolster book bans nationwide. The organization brought a lawsuit over book bans — which is still ongoing — in May 2023 against Florida’s Escambia County School District.
"Leaving the Fifth Circuit’s ruling in place erodes the most elemental principles of free speech and allows state and local governments to exert ideological control over the people with impunity," said Elly Brinkley, staff attorney for U.S. Free Expression Programs at PEN America, in a Dec. 8 statement. "The government has no place telling people what they can and cannot read.”
The free speech organization recorded nearly 7,000 instances of banned books in the 2024-25 school year, with bans in 23 states and 87 public school districts. Since 2021, the organization has counted nearly 23,000 bans in public schools across the country.
With more book ban cases pending in the lower courts — including in the 8th, 10th, and 11th circuits — it's possible that one will eventually make it to the Supreme Court. In the absence of a Supreme Court decision, however, lower court decisions could differ and would apply to schools and public libraries based on jurisdiction and the specifics of each case.
