By Kapish Kalita
WASHINGTON, DC – The ACLU of Northern California, the First Amendment Coalition, the Freedom to ReadFoundation and PEN America have announced their “strong” opposition to a resolution before the Fresno County Board of Supervisors establishing a “Parents Matter” approach to reviewing age-appropriate children’s books in Fresno County libraries.
They “strongly urge the Board to reject” the plan.
The ACLU said it believes, “Libraries play a special role in the public’s civic education and the free exchange of diverse ideas and information,” and “(t)he resolution severely undermines this goal by, censor(ing) books based on seemingly disfavored speech,” calling the plan “unworkable.”
The ACLU also argued the resolution was “unnecessary given the library policies currently in place to let parents and guardians decide what is appropriate for minors in their care.”
In its statement, the ACLU describes the resolution’s unconstitutionality, because “the First Amendment protects the fundamental right to freedom of speech, which encompasses the right to receive information in public libraries.”
According to the ACLU, this constitutional right is “especially salient in the context of public libraries, which serve as ‘the ‘quintessential’ locus for the exercise of the right to receive information and ideas.”
The ACLU also addressed concerns of constitutionality that the material the resolution regards as “sexual writings, sexual references, sexual images, gender-identity content, and other sexual content or content deemed age-inappropriate,” does “not lose its” First Amendment “protection merely because it contains allegedly sexual or controversial content.”
This ruling is still true concerning schools, with the ACLU noting the legal precedent which “held that a local school board had violated students’ free speech rights when it removed books ‘from school library shelves simply because they dislike[d] the ideas contained in those books.’”
The ACLU added the resolution would “impose an unlawful and invasive censorship regime on the constitutional right to access library books,” which would be handled by “a 15-person ‘community parent and guardian review committee.’”
The ACLU said giving this power to the committee “licenses” them “to exercise unbridled discretion and invade the rights of young people and their families,” and “limits access to protected speech based on vague standards and the[ir] arbitrary whims unaccountable to the electorate.”
The groups add it would be wildly inappropriate, especially, according to the ACLU, because it facilitates the uncontrolled “limit(ation) an entire community’s access to materials.”
In addition, the ACLU said vague wording present in the Fresno Board of Supervisors resolution, especially relating to its prohibition of “gender-identity content,” would “prohibit materials implicating the gender identities of, not just transgender people, but also of cisgender men and women” and content related to “gender identity, sexual orientation, and sexual and reproductive health.”
Prohibiting these materials prevents minors from safely learning about topics related to sexual identity and gender, especially, according to the ACLU, “those who identify as LGTBTQ+.”
By prohibiting this content, the resolution, argued the ACLU, “sends a harmful, stigmatizing message about gender identity and sexual orientation” and “mimics a worrisome nationwide political effort aimed at restricting protected speech which discusses gender identity and sexual orientation.”
The ACLU said the resolution is “unnecessary given current library policies,” because it would “establish the process by which parental or guardian consent is obtained or given to accessing or checking out books and other restricted materials” and make “(p)arental or guardian consent…required before accessing or checking out books and other materials that contain Age-Inappropriate Content.”
However, according to the ACLU, the resolution ignores “children under 13 years of age need the signature of a parent or guardian to even get a library card, and parents who have their child’s card information can access the list of materials their children have checked out at any time,” which would allow them to view if their child checked out “age-inappropriate content.”
The ACLU added county libraries also “require…a parent, guardian, or caregiver of any child less than eight years of age be ‘in the immediate vicinity of the children in their charge at all times,’” noting these policies prevent children from viewing age-inappropriate content without their parent’s consent, making the resolution redundant.
I smell the vile, neo-fascist and Republican-backed Moms for Liberty are behind these book bans.