In a win for freedom to read advocates, board members of the Rutherford County Library System voted unanimously last week to rescind a March decision to remove books dealing with transgender topics from public libraries.
Rutherford County still faces growing tensions over book banning – in April, PEN America filed a lawsuit against the Rutherford County Board of Education in response to the removal of more than 145 books from local schools.
Legal pressure of this kind is what reportedly led the library board’s chairman, Cody York, to push for the reversal of his own prior call for the books’ removals, which came after legal counsel advised the board of the likelihood of losing potential First Amendment lawsuits as well as the costs and consequences of these actions.
Freedom to read advocates testified at the Library Board’s meeting that the decision to remove books about the transgender experience erased lives. York, who previously had the board’s backing to remove material that “promotes, encourages, advocates for or normalizes transgenderism or ‘gender confusion’ in minors,’” said he would lead the board in drafting new “policies to protect children.”
While the library system has ceased its discriminatory censorship policy, the Rutherford County school district continues to ban books. PEN America has joined students and parents in the county as Plaintiffs against the Rutherford Board of Education, represented by the ACLU of Tennessee.
The Board began banning books in the spring of 2024 after informal requests from school board members. The school board ignored the recommendations of media specialists to return many of the materials. The lawsuit asserts the First Amendment rights of students to access information and ideas, and the rights of authors to communicate with audiences free of viewpoint discrimination.
The school board removed or restricted more than 145 titles, including Beloved by Toni Morrison, Melissa by Alex Gino, and Forever… by Judy Blume. In removing books, the school board relied in part on reviews from Book Looks, a now-defunct website developed by individuals associated with Moms for Liberty, a right-wing group behind much of the rise of book banning across the country. The former website offered a book rating system designed to penalize books with LGBTQ+ characters, “racial, social, or religious commentary,” and other characteristics, offering quotations from books without context.
PEN America’s lawsuit against Rutherford continues, and a preliminary injunction is pending in the court.
