Lit Hub: “Only one library book ban case has ever been decided by the U.S. Supreme Court: Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico (1982). In 1975, the Island Trees school board in Nassau County, New York removed nearly a dozen books from the high school and junior high libraries. A group of students led by senior Steven Pico sued the school, losing at trial but winning on appeal.  The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the books were improperly banned, but only three of those five justices thought that the First Amendment granted students the “right to read,” making a constitutional violation the crux of their argument. This lack of accord makes Pico a weak precedent. Indeed, lower level courts have been disagreeing with it ever since. Pico has not been revisited in over 40 years. I fear it will soon. Book ban cases have ramped up in recent years, and judges are flying blind, continuing to make guidance-free rulings. All it takes is one ultra-determined litigant to push through a test case, a Pico 2.0. When that happens, will the Supreme Court unequivocally recognize a constitutional freedom to read? Or will it strike a blow for censorship? Book ban cases have ramped up in recent years, and judges are flying blind, continuing to make guidance-free rulings.

That case may finally have arrived. On May 23, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its ruling in Little v. Llano County, a case that began in 2021, when a group of Llano County, Texas residents began agitating for certain books to be removed from the public library system—books they saw as “obscene” and “pornographic.” These included Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen (a book often banned because the main character, Mickey, appears in the nude), Robie H. Harris and Michael Emberley’s It’s Perfectly Normal (a sex education book for pre-teens), and Dawn McMillan’s I Broke My Butt (“cheeky sequel to the international bestseller I Need a New Butt”).  In total, seventeen books were removed. Library officials claimed this was done as part of the normal weeding process, though that doesn’t explain why the library board was dissolved and a new one created with the complainers as members that tried to close all the library branches. Seven residents sued, claiming that the book removals were based on content and therefore violated their First Amendment rights. (In Pico, the Supreme Court had ruled that the Island Trees school board “possess[ed] significant discretion to determine the content of their school libraries, but that discretion may not be exercised in a narrowly partisan or political manner.”) …