Last November, the Mat-Su Borough School District was sued over the removal of fifty-six books from school libraries. Now, the plaintiffs in the case are requesting that they be returned to shelves pending the final outcome of the case.
The Mat-Su Borough School District was sued three times in the last quarter of 2023. One of those lawsuits was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and a group of students represented by the Northern Justice Project. The suit claims that the removal of more than fifty books from school library shelves constitutes a violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Savannah Fletcher is an attorney with the Northern Justice Project and is representing the plaintiffs. She outlines why the removal of books can be considered a constitutional violation.
“To remove the fifty-six books from every single library so that a student whose parent is a-okay with them reading Slaughterhouse Five, can no longer check that book out and read it. That is a major Constitutional violation, because it really limits your ability to access ideas, and really is then the government, in this case the school board, forcing certain ideas and mainstream thoughts on you in ways that our Constitution doesn’t allow.”
Now, the plaintiffs are seeking a preliminary injunction to have the books returned to school libraries, pending the outcome of the court case. Fletcher says the court case may not be heard until next year, and that judicial intervention now would prevent further violation of students’ rights.
“These are middle-schoolers [and] high-schoolers. Some may graduate….Two of our clients in this case are graduating this year. If we don’t get the books back on shelves soon, kids are losing opportunities as we speak to read and access new ideas. High-schoolers I’ve spoken with have their favorite book series on the banned list. These are real-world impacts, and that’s why we’re seeking justice now instead of to stretch it out longer than necessary.”
The removal of library books in the Mat-Su is part of a trend happening simultaneously in multiple parts of the country. Fletcher says another federal court has recently ruled against a school district’s removal of books.
“In Iowa, we had this massive book ban that the state was trying to implement, and just five days ago, their federal court…said that was not going to be allowed. And they granted the preliminary injunction to return all those books before further harm occurred. So we see a similar situation, and the court returning all those books to the library, in Iowa.”
Because the Iowa case was heard in a different federal circuit, the court’s opinion in that case is not binding in Alaska. For that to be the case, a ruling needs to come from within the Ninth Circuit or from the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has ruled on banning library books in the past. The memorandum attached to the request for an injunction includes multiple references to a case known as Pico vs. Board of Education. That case was decided in 1982, but Fletcher says there are multiple parallels to the Mat-Su Case.
“The court found in that case [that] went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that the basis for banning those nine books, which was just that some people found them disagreeable, had this political motivation behind it. It wasn’t based on educational value and whether it was truly not appropriate to be in a school library. They found that kind of banning of books based on viewpoint to be unconstitutional, and consequently all of those books were required to go back into the schools.”
The fifty-six books, including one, Slaughterhouse Five, that was directly involved in the Pico case, were removed after complaints were filed by individuals in the community. Fletcher says the school board has not given its own reasons for removing the books, but that public testimony has shown some patterns.
“We’re guessing and surmising at these patterns why they’re eliminating these books based on the public comments that we’ve heard, but we were never given an explanation. It seems somewhat arbitrary and really reactionary to the individual complaints that someone might have submitted.”
“It’s not entirely clear, but we do see a pattern. A lot of the books either have LGBTQ themes or have authors who are people of color.”
Fletcher estimates that oral arguments for the injunction could take place as early as next month. The school district’s citizen advisory committee that is reviewing the books is scheduled to meet on January 11th.
