For years, liberals have screamed “book ban” any time a school district or library pulled a controversial book about sexual orientation or gender confusion from its shelves. But a federal judge recently smacked down these claims once again and affirmed that government officials have the right to make decisions about what is appropriate for students to access in school libraries.
In 2023, Escambia County Schools in Florida removed the book And Tango Makes Three from school libraries in order to comply with the state’s Parental Rights in Education law. That law empowers parents by ensuring they have a say in what their children are taught in the classroom, particularly on sensitive topics like gender identity and sexual orientation. It protects kids from exposure to age-inappropriate content at school, reinforcing the right of families – not bureaucrats or activists – to guide their children’s moral and educational development.
And Tango Makes Three, which is aimed at young children, tells the ostensibly true story of two male penguins who allegedly tried to hatch an egg together. (In reality, they first tried to hatch a rock, and then a zookeeper took an egg and gave it to them). The tale has become a sort of folklore among the LGBTQ+ community as supposed evidence that animals can also be gay. (An important side note on this point: one of the male penguins, Silo, paired up with a female penguin soon after the book came out. Yet activists still hold up this story as a favorite.)
The Escambia County School Board decided that because of the overtly sexualized themes of the book, it was not appropriate for borrowing. Notably, the school never actually had a copy in its own library. Instead, it had been allowing students to borrow the book from other schools.
In response to the school board’s decision, the authors of the book, along with a five-year-old listed as a plaintiff, sued various education officials in the state, claiming their First Amendment rights were violated. The authors did so at the same time left-wing activists were shrieking “book ban” any time a school district removed a children’s book that pushed gender ideology or pornographic content.
“By discriminating based on content and viewpoint, it infringes the authors’ right to freedom of expression,” the lawsuit said. “By restricting access to a book, which was previously freely available, for narrowly partisan and political reasons, it infringes students’ right to receive information,” the plaintiffs argued, as reported by NBC News.
The two authors couched their lawsuit in patriotic terms, saying they were fighting “to affirm the American principle that no child should be denied access to age-appropriate information in school because of the beliefs and biases of some” and “to defend students’ right to read a heartwarming story of difference, acceptance, and love.” The book’s creators, who have a financial interest in libraries and schools buying their books, also said they were fighting “to protect authors from censorship rooted in intolerance.”
But as District Judge Allen Winsor pointed out in his ruling late last month, the school board’s decision was hardly a case of censorship or free speech violation. The book is still freely available online and in stores, and no author has a right to force libraries to buy their books. “If a disappointed patron can’t find a book in the library, he can order it online, buy it from a bookstore, or borrow it from a friend,” the ruling stated, quoting another court case.
The First Amendment simply means that the government cannot stop someone from writing or saying something. It includes no guarantee that anyone is given a platform for his or her views. Furthermore, no child is being “denied access” to the book by a school simply not stocking it on their shelves or letting students borrow it.
Libraries, Judge Winsor also noted, make decisions all the time about what books to include or not include. “Libraries do not exist primarily to encourage diverse views of private speakers or to ‘provide a public forum for the authors of books,’” the judge wrote, citing a past Supreme Court ruling. “Instead, libraries collect books that the government deems to be of ‘requisite and appropriate quality.’”
The authors, Judge Winsor added, do not “have a First Amendment right to demand the library ignore the book’s viewpoint when determining whether to include it in its collection.” He also gave an example of an offensive book that espoused anti-Jewish views as something a librarian might reasonably decide to exclude from a collection.
The judge further reiterated that removing books and adding books are two sides of the same coin – requiring libraries to not remove books would seem to require them to also add any book requested.
“The Escambia County School Board has simply decided students wanting this particular book will have to get it elsewhere,” he wrote, a curation practice that is “two centuries” old (if not older).
The ruling is an important rebuke to left-wing activists who see public schools and libraries as their own recruiting ground to push their views onto young, vulnerable, and impressionable students. As the past several years have shown, left-wing activists have an unhealthy obsession with coercing young kids to read inappropriate books with age-inappropriate LGBTQ+ themes and at times, pornographic content.
If parents truly feel these books are important for their children to read, they remain free to buy them online or at bookstores.
What activists do not have the right to do, as Judge Winson made clear, is force libraries and schools to carry every book that they want while ignoring the rights of parents who want to ensure their children are reading content that aligns with their values.
Matt Lamb is a contributor for AMAC Newsline and an associate editor for The College Fix. He previously worked for Students for Life of America, Students for Life Action, and Turning Point USA. He previously interned for Open the Books. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Examiner, The Federalist, LifeSiteNews, Human Life Review, Headline USA, and other outlets. The opinions expressed are his own. Follow him @mattlamb22 on X.
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