In a case that has been playing out for over a year, a federal district judge has placed a temporary injunction against Llano County officials, and the library board, to return banned books back into the Llano County library system. The case is still pending, but in the meantime, the books must be reinstated into the Llano County library system until the case is finally decided around October. 

Back in 2021, a group of Llano residents, several of whom are defendants in the case, made complaints about books that they found in the Llano County library system. When the complaints made it to the County Judge and County Commissioners, they ordered the library director to remove the books. Throughout the rest of 2021, more complaints came from the same group of people. 

After a list of 60 books was made by the library system’s director that highlighted which books would be deemed too inappropriate for children, Llano county officials were now ordering the library system to remove books they declared pornographic, sexually explicit, and promoted grooming behavior. While one defendant suggested they only move the books to an adult section, the county officials sought to have them removed completely and filter them out of the Overdrive database. 

Furthermore, the County commissioners dissolved the library board and replaced it with members from the community who made complaints about the books in the first place. They then made it a policy that all books coming into the public library system had to be reviewed and approved by the board. Library staff, including the library director, were banned from attending the meetings. Later, the meetings were closed to the public. 

The public was not allowed to address this nor seek recourse. The libraries shut down for three days to begin the book removal process and the library system’s electronic database, Overlook, was shut down. When one librarian from Kingsland Branch Library did not follow the orders of county officials, she was fired. 

The Defendants in the case are Llano County Judge Ron Cunningham; commissioners Jerry Don Moss, Peter Jones, Mike Sandoval, and Linda Raschke; Library System Director Amber Milum; and Library Advisory Board members Bonnie Wallace, Rochelle Wells, Rhonda Schneider, and Gay Baskin.

The Plaintiffs in the case–Leila Green Little, Jeanne Puryear, Kathy Kennedy, Rebecca Jones, Richard Day, Cynthia Waring, and Diane Moster– filed the lawsuit over the issue stating the actions made by the County violate the First Amendment freedom of expression and the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process. 

Until a final decision is made in October, Federal District Judge Mark Pittman made a temporary injunction against the defendants. According to the Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association, “The court issued the injunction based on the court’s belief that the plaintiffs have a high likelihood of success in prevailing on their First Amendment claims at trial.” 

The Judge did find the plaintiffs suffered an injury because they are library members and are not able to access the information they are wanting. Pittman wrote that there is a liberty interest for the plaintiffs to seek recourse in these decisions. Because the library board was closing their meetings to the public, the plaintiffs do have a due process claim. 

Judge Pittman wrote, “With respect to the remaining claims, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have properly alleged First Amendment and Due Process violations. As to the First Amendment claims, the Court finds Plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged that the Defendants’ actions do not constitute government speech and that the Defendants unlawfully removed books based on their viewpoint. As to the Due Process claims, the Court identifies a liberty interest in access to information protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Additionally, Judge Pittman said it seems the new library board and county officials removed these books because they did not agree with the ideas in them such as LGBTQ, transgender, and Critical Race Theory themes. “Here, Plaintiffs have sufficiently pled that Defendants’ conduct was substantially motivated by a desire to remove books promoting ideas with which disagreed,” said Pittman.

However, Judge Pittman said that the books do not have to be returned to their original locations. The removed books have to the returned to the library, but they do not have to go to the original shelf. Judge Pittman also dismissed the plaintiff’s request that the county reinstates Overdrive, the previous electronic resource the county library system used.