DENVER ( KDVR ) — The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, representing two students in the Elizabeth School District among other stakeholders, is suing the Eastern Colorado district for removing books that personally violated some “school board members’ partisan and political values.”
“These removals violated federal and state constitutional free speech protections,” the ACLU of Colorado wrote in its announcement of the case, calling the action a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. “It deprives students of access to a diversity of information and viewpoints. It also denies authors their right to share their books with students free from viewpoint-based censorship.”
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The case refers to a decision made in September by the Elizabeth School District Board of Education wherein 18 books were banned from the district’s libraries because officials cited “inappropriate content, mostly sexual in nature.” The banned books, according to the ACLU of Colorado’s lawsuit, are:
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson
- #Pride: Championing LGBTQ Rights by Rebecca Felix
- Melissa/George by Alex Gino
- It’s Your World — If You Don’t Like It, Change It by Mikki Halpin
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
- Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
- Looking for Alaska by John Green
- Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
- Crank, Glass, Fallout, Identical, Burned and Smoke , all written by Ellen Hopkins
The ACLU of Colorado also alleged that the Elizabeth Board of Education “quietly removed at least one other book” from the district’s libraries, saying that Redwood and Ponytail by K.A. Holt was removed from the Running Creek Elementary library “because it is about two girls who develop feelings for each other.”
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According to the complaint, the lawsuit was filed by the ACLU of Colorado on behalf of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a student at Elizabeth High School, a preschool student at Running Creek Elementary and The Authors Guild, which represents over 14,000 authors in all genres.
The lawsuit alleges that board meetings became contentious after the election of Booth and Olsen, who allegedly ran for the office “on a mission to keep politically liberal ideologies out of Elizabeth schools.” The lawsuit said that many contentious discussions were held to discuss LGBTQIA “agendas” and “critical race theory.”…