Rural Texans file federal lawsuit against Hill Country county that banned books and fired a librarian

As The Rural Blog recently shared, a rural Texas county has been in an uproar since last fall, when conservative activists got local leaders to censor library books and fire a librarian who objected to it. What happened next illustrates how similar efforts to ban books could go.

"A citizens group in Llano County, Tex., has filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that county officials violated their constitutional rights when they unilaterally removed 'award-winning books' from the public libraries 'because they disagree with the ideas within them,'" Annie Gowen reports for The Washington Post. "In the 31-page filing in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas in San Antonio, a group of anti-censorship activists say that county officials violated the First Amendment when they removed the books, and that they did so again when they 'permanently terminated access to over 17,000 digital books' they could not censor, affecting the elderly and people with disabilities who find it hard to travel to the physical library. Commissioners also voted to close library board meetings to the public, a move that also denied these citizens equal protection under the law, the suit argues."

Experts say such lawsuits will likely happen in other places that have attempted to ban books on the basis of LGBTQ or racial content. Some rural residents may feel a lawsuit is the only recourse possible when other actions at the local level don't bring change. Leila Green Little, a board member for the Llano library system's fundraising group, told Gowen a lawsuit was necessary "because we had no other remaining avenue to pursue change. We attended meetings, made comments, wrote letters and pleaded with the county to stop the censorship, and they never changed course."