Judge blocks school board from removing explicit books because the board is ‘conservative’

(The Daily Signal) A school board in Colorado cannot remove sexually explicit, profane, and “transgender” books from school libraries because the school board is conservative, according to a federal judge touted as the first openly lesbian judge west of the Mississippi.

The ACLU’s Colorado chapter filed a suit on behalf of two minors, the NAACP Wyoming State Area Conference, and the Authors Guild, claiming that the school district engaged in viewpoint discrimination when removing the books. The judge granted a preliminary injunction in March, forcing the Elizabeth School District (in Elizabeth, a suburb southeast of Denver) to restore the books.

Judge Charlotte Sweeney second-guessed the school district’s objections to the books’ contents, calling the objections “pretexual” and condemning the removals as partisan because school board members had discussed following their conservative convictions when debating the removal of the books.

“Other than pretextual declarations, at this stage, there simply is no reason to believe that the books were removed because of vulgarity, age-inappropriateness, or for legitimate pedagogical [teaching] concerns; the board’s own emails strongly suggest that the book removal was motivated by the directors’ ‘commitment to conservative values,’” Sweeney wrote. “The court questions what could be more partisan or political than removing books to further the board’s self-described conservative values.”

Julian Ellis, the school district’s attorney, told The Daily Signal that the district had asked Sweeney to hold an evidentiary hearing so she could review the books herself, yet the judge refused. The board had included segments from the books in its filings, aiming to demonstrate the vulgar and inappropriate material, but the judge dismissed those.

Instead, the judge ruled that “the district’s decisive factor in voting to permanently banish the removed books was because the district disagreed with the views expressed in the books and to further their preferred political orthodoxy.”

“The court viewed any decision motivated by ‘conservative values’ as unacceptable and partisan,” Ellis explained. “The problem with the district court’s analysis is those ‘conservative values’ could be assigned to any book removal decision—a book that’s never been checked out, a book with ice cream stains on the cover, or a book that denies the Holocaust” (emphasis original).

“This also begs a question: How could a ‘conservative’ school board ever remove problematic content without the board members’ conservatism disqualifying the decision?” Ellis asked. He condemned the ruling as “unequal treatment because of one’s conservative values.”

Dan Snowberger, the board’s chairman, told The Daily Signal that Sweeney abused her authority.

READ: How a Planned Parenthood coalition fights to keep sexually graphic books in schools

“The fact that she is failing to acknowledge that the plaintiffs have mischaracterized the content of the books in question—despite our filings, including segments of the books, and refuses to even hold a hearing to allow the parties to present facts—is rather interesting and doesn’t seem impartial,” he said.

Left-leaning activist groups cheered Sweeney’s confirmation to the federal bench in 2022, celebrating her as “the first LGBT woman to serve as a federal district judge west of the Mississippi.”

“We have an unelected judge forcing her particular opinion and values on a community with which she has no connection and no desire to hear from the defendants, judging all submitted evidence as invalid over a few cherry-picked, out-of-context emails regarding a couple of the books in question,” Snowberger said.

Removed books include “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison (which critics say contains sexually explicit content and depicts child sexual abuse) and “Thirteen Reasons Why” by Jay Asher (which critics say glorifies suicide), among others.

The Lawsuit

The case traces back to 2023, when the school board’s director, Mike Callahan, learned that his 11-year-old daughter had checked out a book with sexually explicit content. The board established a Curriculum Review Committee to review and weed out inappropriate books. The committee listed approximately 100 books containing sensitive topics and recommended 19 books for suspension pending review. The board solicited feedback from the community about the books and then voted to remove them.

The board voted to suspend or remove books because they had sexually explicit, violent, or age-inappropriate content; because parents, voters, and taxpayers expressed opposition to the books being in school libraries; and because the board members did not consider the books’ educational value enough to outweigh other concerns.

The ACLU of Colorado sued in December, representing a high school junior at Elizabeth High School, a preschooler at Running Creek Elementary, the NAACP Wyoming State Area Conference, and the Authors Guild. The ACLU claimed that the Colorado NAACP chapter includes parents of kids in the district’s public schools, but neither the ACLU nor the NAACP identified the parents. The Authors Guild includes authors of some of the restricted books.

The ACLU claims that the school board violated the First Amendment rights of the high school junior and the preschooler—neither of whom has yet to attempt to check out the books—by removing the titles. The ACLU also claims it violated the authors’ First Amendment rights by interfering with their ability to communicate their ideas to students.

On Jan. 27, the school district decided to make the 19 disputed books available to the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Even so, Sweeney ordered the district to restore the books on March 19. The district appealed the case, and while the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit will hear the case, it rejected the district’s appeal for a stay to block Sweeney’s order….

Read the entire article at The Daily Signal.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published at The Daily Signal and is reprinted here with permission.