During the summer of 2024, the Elizabeth School District’s (“ESD”) Board of Education began a quest to limit students’ access to any books that contravene the Board’s purported “conservative values.” The Board appointed a committee to review all the books in ESD libraries and create a list of books containing allegedly “sensitive topics,” such as “racism/discrimination,” “religious viewpoints,” “sexual content,” “profanity/obscenity,” “graphic violence,” and “ideations of self-harm or mental illness.” They created a “Sensitive Book” list with more than 100 books that included 1984 by George Orwell, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, and even the Bible and the Koran. Parents can choose to “opt out” of allowing their children access to these books, and the parents receive an email every time their child checks one of the books out.
Of the 100+ books on the Sensitive List, the Board decided to ban and remove at least 19 books from the school libraries. These books were primarily by or about people of color and/or LGBTQ+ people and award-winning novels that explore race, inequality, and the challenges of adolescence. They included Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Beloved; Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give; Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner; You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson; #Pride: Championing LGBTQ Rights by Rebecca Felix; Melissa (formerly published as George) by Alex Gino; Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, It’s Your World—If You Don’t Like It, Change It by Mikki Halpin; The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky; Looking for Alaska by John Green; Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult; Speak by Laurie Anderson; and Crank, Glass, Fallout, Identical, Burned, and Smoke by Ellen Hopkins. All these novels were removed from the Elizabeth School District’s libraries because the Board dislikes the themes and views they express.
We brought suit against the District on behalf of two ESD students, the NAACP, and the Authors Guild, arguing that the District’s removal of books based on its disagreement with the ideas they contain violates the federal and state constitutions. The First Amendment and its Colorado counterpart protect the right to receive information and ideas. Those constitutional rights are violated when a school board removes books from school libraries because it dislikes the ideas contained in those books. In addition to violating students’ right to access books in their school library free from politically motivated censorship, the District also violated authors’ rights to share their books free from undue viewpoint-based discrimination.
To vindicate these rights, we sued the District on behalf of students, the NAACP, and the Authors Guild. The case is pending in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado.
Press Releases:
ACLU of Colorado Sues Elizabeth School District Over Book Bans
Media:
ACLU sues Colorado school district over removal of “highly sensitive” library books
ACLU of Colorado sues Elizabeth School District over book bans
Elizabeth School District sued over book bans
