After a favorable legal ruling in August, freedom to read advocates in Alaska have scored a significant victory in court over would-be book banners. In an October 31 filing, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District in Alaska agreed to pay $89,000 to settle claims that the district improperly removed dozens of books, including several works of classic literature, from school libraries.
"First the court, and now this settlement, confirm what these students and their parents have known all along: you cannot remove dozens of books from school libraries simply because a vocal minority dislike those books,” said Savannah Fletcher, attorney for advocacy group the Northern Justice Project, in a statement. “Our Constitution protects freedom of speech and freedom of ideas. After successfully having the majority of those books returned to school shelves, we hope the District has learned to not judge a book by its cover."
First filed nearly a year ago, on November 17, 2023, against the Mat-Su school district, north of Anchorage, by eight local plaintiffs, the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska, and the Northern Justice Project, the suit sought the return of 56 books that school officials ordered to be removed after a handful of parent complaints until a committee was established to review the allegedly offensive books. Removed titles included such classics as Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, as well as many books involving people of color, the LGBTQ community, and adolescent sexual health.
At an April 1 hearing, school officials argued that they have wide latitude to review books on library shelves. But attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that the books were removed without due process before any such review committee was even assembled, based only on a handful of complaints. In her August 6 decision, federal judge Sharon Gleason agreed, and ordered most of the 56 removed books to be returned to library shelves before the start of the school year, finding that their removal raised the specter “of official suppression of ideas.”
In a press release, school officials denied wrongdoing, noting that the district’s review committee has already approved the return of all but seven of the 56 removed titles cited in the lawsuit—a statement that would only seem to affirm that the books were improperly withheld from students.
District officials said that they entered into the settlement to avoid the further expense of a trial. “The School Board and the District firmly believe no errors were made and the judge's order in August seems to support this belief. We also believe a trial on the merits would establish that the Library Advisory Committee thoughtfully and carefully reviewed each title,” the release states, as reported in the local Frontiersman. “The Board and the District are glad to have this distraction of a lawsuit behind us.”
Ruth Botstein, legal director for the ACLU of Alaska, called the settlement a reminder of the “gravity of unconstitutional censorship and its legal consequences,” noting that it should stand as a warning to other school districts “that might be considering attempts to ban books.”
The settlement is the latest in a string of legal victories for freedom to read advocates. It comes as the Fifth Circuit U.S. court of appeals considers a closely-watched decision over the removal of public library books, and as lawsuits in Iowa and in Florida challenge book banning provisions in new state laws.
