Oklahoma Bill Would Effectively Let Any Parent Veto Any Public School Library Book

Oklahoma SB 1142, introduced by state senator and Majority Whip Rob Standridge, begins (numbering added):

[A.] No public school district, public charter school, or public school library shall maintain in its inventory or promote

[1] books that make as their primary subject the study of sex, sexual preferences, sexual activity, sexual perversion, sex-based classifications, sexual identity, or gender identity or

[2] books that are of a sexual nature that a reasonable parent or legal guardian would want to know of or approve of prior to their child being exposed to it.

Now there is likely no First Amendment problem with a public school district removing books that it sees as unsuitable for children, whether "because it contains offensive language or because it is psychologically or intellectually inappropriate for the age group." In Board of Ed. v. Pico, the Court split 4-4 on whether a public school may remove library books based on the books' viewpoint. (Justice White, who cast the deciding vote, expressly declined to reach that question.) But it seems pretty likely that removing at least some books from school libraries that are seen as too sexual would be constitutional, whether or not you think it's a good idea. (I leave that sort of policy question to our readers to decide on their own, though I'm inclined to be skeptical about such categorical exclusions, especially as to books that really do involve "the study of" important features of human life, and ones that are surely of significance to many adolescents, especially given that millions of Americans' first sexual experiences occur during their high school years.)

Of course you might now be asking, though, just how one would decide such things. Librarians must of course make subjective decisions about this and other matters, if only when they are deciding which books to buy in the first place. But if it's the law that librarians may not buy, and indeed presumably must remove, certain books, then there would have to be a legal standard—and "of a sexual nature that a reasonable parent … would want to know of or approve of prior to their child being exposed to it" is just not a legally well-defined standard.

Rest easy! No librarian or judge or jury would have to apply such a standard, because of the following two paragraphs:

[B.] [1.] The parent or legal guardian of a student who believes a public school district, public charter school, or public school library is maintaining book(s) in violation of subsection A of this section may submit a written request to the school district superintendent or charter school administrator to remove the book(s) from the public school district, public charter school, or public school library.

[2.] The book(s) requested for removal shall be removed from the public school district, public charter school, or public school library within thirty (30) days of receiving the request.

That's right: According to the plain text of the bill, the school official "shall" "remove[]" any book that a parent "believes" is "of a sexual nature that a reasonable parent … would want to know of or approve of prior to their child being exposed to it." So long as a parent writes the superintendent that he or she believes that, say, Romeo & Juliet (teenage sex) or Othello ("beast with two backs") or the Bible (Sodomy etc.) or whatever else fits within subsection A, the school must remove it. (By the way, I not only think there's no Establishment Clause problems with school libraries stocking the Bible, but I think they definitely should, or at least should have before the Bible and so many other books became so easily available and searchable online.)

And, if the school official doesn't accede to the request, the parent can sue the school (that's in subsection C)—for a statutory minimum of $10,000/day that the book is not removed. Plus it gets better:

[B.] [3.] A public school district or public charter school employee tasked with removing a book from a public school district, public charter school, or public school library who does not do so within thirty (30) days of receiving a request shall be dismissed or not reemployed, subject to the provisions of the Teacher Due Process Act of 1990, and the employee shall be prohibited from being employed by a public school district or public charter school for a period of two (2) years. The book shall be removed from the public school district, public charter school, or public school library by a school administrator.

Yes, that's right, it's firing and a two-year public school employment blacklist for you, if you don't promptly accede to the parent's "belie[f]," conveyed in a "written request," that a book is not suitable for the school library.

Thanks to The U.S. Free Speech Union for the pointer.

Comments

[Noscitur a sociis]

So long as a parent writes the superintendent that he or she believes that, say, Romeo & Juliet (teenage sex) or Othello ("beast with two backs") or the Bible (Sodomy etc.) or whatever else fits within subsection A, the school must remove it.

Since there doesn't seem to be any way to dispute or review the parent's belief (or even for the parent to retract the request), it would seem that could very literally include "whatever else"—even if the book in actuality has no sexual content whatsoever.

[Ridgeway]

I'll be amused if this is a gag post by Prof V, and the real bill is essentially identical but was instead proposed by some state legislator in Massachusetts, and is aimed dealing with racism and sexism in books rather than "perversion".

[Eugene Volokh]

It would have indeed been amusing -- but, alas ....

[Ridgeway]

I am also imagining Sen. Standridge as Keenan Wynn (Col. Bat Guano) going on about "deviant preversions" in Dr. Strangelove.

[Sarcastr0]

I honestly don't think you'd see a lot of switching of sides in this case.

[hobie]

I guess all the books about birds and bees will get the bonfire

[Cal Cetín]

So, who is the legislator who introduced this - the chairman of a powerful committee? The Speaker?

[Eugene Volokh]

Majority Whip and Chairman of the Transportation Committee; I've updated the post to mention the Majority Whip item.

[Brett Bellmore]

Written by Senator Standridge. For all I know he was a competent pharmacist, but he seems not to be too great at drafting legislation; Even from the most extreme perspective, this bill seems over-inclusive.

[Lee Moore]

Also underinclusive, as there doesn't seem to be anything that prevents the school removing the book complained of, and then putting it straight back.

[Brett Bellmore]

Not only could happen, but does.

[Lee Moore]

Actually not quite true. Section A imposes a duty on the school district not to maintain naughty books (including the "reasonable parent" standard) even in the absence of a complaint. So putting it back would be extra naughty, at least in the case of a book that clearly fell within A.

Suggestions for redrafting :

1. split A1 from A2
2. make A1 a straightforward objective rule, where the school principal, librarian etc, plus anyone on the school board who has knowledge, is liable to dismissal for a breach
3. make A2 a subjective parent rule, requiring the school to maintain any A2 books of which a parent has complained in a locked cupboard, accessible only by children of uncomplaining parents ; and perhaps requiring removal if x number of parents have complained.

In any event, requiring the school to maintain and make public a list of books it has in the library would seem straightforward.

[MatthewSlyfield]

I would be fine with leaving section A as is, as long as B was modified to put more process into a complaint.

Complaints filed by parents should require adjudication by a neutral (not an employee of the school related entity receiving the complaint) fact finder, with notification to other parents, so they can weigh in if they desire.

[Bob from Ohio]

An appeal should be heard by the school board, they are the elected authority.

[MatthewSlyfield]

But they are not neutral.

[Brett Bellmore]

But parents can "fire" them, at least.

[Ridgeway]

Well at least the Rev will have some new material. He can retire Hillsdale and Ave Maria, and add the entire state of Oklahoma.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Nothing new about this:

STATES RANKED BY EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT
(52, including territories)

High school diploma
Oklahoma 35

Undergraduate degree
Oklahoma 46

Graduate degree
Oklahoma 44

(Here are the most ignorant states as indicated by lack of college degrees: West Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Nevada, Oklahoma, Alabama, Indiana, Puerto Rico, New Mexico, Tennessee, Idaho, Wyoming, Ohio, Iowa, South Carolina, South Dakota, Michigan, Arizona, Alaska, Missouri, North Dakota, Florida, Texas.

Here are the most ignorant states as indicated by lack of advanced degrees: Puerto Rico, Arkansas, West Virginia, Mississippi, North Dakota, Louisiana, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Iowa, Indiana, Idaho, Alabama, Kentucky, Wyoming, Montana, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Texas, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah.

Warning to conservatives: You probably won't be pleased by a comparison of these rankings and the list identifying Republican registration by state. It turns out communities with lots of Republicans tend to be full of ignorant.

Which helps to explain the bill that precipitated this discussion. Rob Standridge is a college graduate -- but it was the University of Oklahoma. He lives in what Oklahomans call the "Tri-City Area," meaning Blanchard, Newcastle, and Tuttle.)

[Cal Cetín]

What do you have against Puerto Ricans?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I look forward to welcoming Puerto Rico to statehood (with Douglass Commonwealth and, I hope, Pacific Islands).

[Cal Cetín]

So how do their education rates compare with those in eastern Oregon, upstate New York, and northern California - if we're comparing potential states as well as actual ones?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Who cares? Part of Oregon, New York, and California are going nowhere.

The new states will add to our union in several ways. Our vestigial clingers will, as usual, sputter and mutter about 'all of this damned progress.' The liberal-libertarian mainstream will, also as usual, shape our progress against the wishes and efforts of right-wingers.

That's the American way!

[Cal Cetín]

I see that things are looking up in Puerto Rico:

"Prices on some Puerto Rico bonds increased after the judge overseeing the island’s bankruptcy signaled she may confirm a debt-restructuring plan soon, a ruling that would allow the commonwealth to exit from more than four years of court oversight."

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/puerto-rico-bankruptcy-judge-set-045906651.html

Soon they'll be able to boast that they're out of bankruptcy!

Will the clinger states be able to make the same boast? I think not.

[John F. Carr]

There is or was a law allowing people to order senders of mail to stop mailing obscene material to them, or maybe the right was to order the post office to stop delivering it. The law was construed to make the recipient's judgment of obscenity unreviewable so you could opt out of receiving mail from any sender you like.

[Dilan Esper]

"I find bills, collection notices, and lawsuit notifications obscene."

[ReaderY]

It’s not any parent. It’s a reasonable parent.

I find myself skeptical of the arguments in this regard.

When a late-20th-century textbook on censorship-defying in film, Film as a Subversive Art, got 2nd edition, the first edition stopped being used.

What justified censoring the first edition? Because it was ccensored. It wasn’t used because people no longer thought it appropriate for its subject and audience. That’s a censorship criterion. That’s what censorship is.

Every course can only have a limited number of books. People have to have criteria by which to select books. Every decision not to select a particular book can be derided as censorship.

Consider artistic merit. The mediocre have the same First Amendment rights as anyone else. Why should censoring them because ones finds mediocrity objectionable get any different a First Amendment analysis tjan censoring them because one finds immorality objectionable? After all, what’s excellent and what’s mediocre artistically is at least as subjective, at least as in the eye of the beholder, as what’s moral or immoral.

Suppose I dumped a crap, put the shit in a box, sent the load to Professor Volokh, and demanded that he display it in his office as an artwork. Would he display it? Probably not. I think he’d have to admit, however, that in choosing the circular file as its repository he would be censoring my art and me as an artist. And he would be doing so based on criteria no different, for First Amendment purposes, than the ones at issue here.

Indeed, if he gets rid of the stuff because he finds it revolting, he would be using exactly the criteria that people who object to public schools making these sorts of decisions object to - irrational animosity, based not on his reason but on irrational gut reactions. Exactly that.

People have a comstitutional right to their art and literature, just as they have a right to their religion. But they don’t have a right to have the government pay for it. I want to do my best to be even-handed about this. I think conservatives are entitled not to have their money go for this if they don’t want to.

[Dilan Esper]

One thing you should consider is whether the informal power of school librarians to remove books, including based on the concerns of members of the general public, is the same thing as a flat rule that says anything a "reasonable" parent says has to go, has to go.

[ReaderY]

I think liberals are entitled not to have their money go for religious instruction if they don’t want to. I think the Supreme Court would be very unwise to decide Carson v. Makin against Maine. I think the courts should take particular care to be scrupulously neutral in these matters, not favoring one side or the other. If the principal is that a majority can decide that government doesn’t have to fund ideas they find objectionable, that principal should be even-handedly applied whether the ideas objected to are liberal or conservative.

After all, there is only room for so many ideas in a school curriculum. Some are going to have to go. And people are going to have to figure out which ones stay and which ones go as best they can.

[bernard11]

If the principal is that a majority can decide that government doesn’t have to fund ideas they find objectionable, that principal should be even-handedly applied whether the ideas objected to are liberal or conservative.

That's not what's going on here, and in any case would be a pretty terrible principle.

[jb]

"It’s not any parent. It’s a reasonable parent."

No, it's what any parent asserts they believe a reasonable parent would object to. There's no ability for the librarian to apply judgment and decide whether or not the parent making that assertion is reasonable.

[Noscitur a sociis]

It’s not any parent. It’s a reasonable parent.

Read it again.

The librarians are supposed to not stock the stuff that a reasonable parent would object to on their own. But any parent or guardian can request the removal of any book if they think the librarian dropped the ball.

[MollyGodiva]

This is not about who pays for it. This is parents preventing all the kids in a school from having access to the book they don’t like. It would be very wrong if a majority of parents objected, and is even more wrong that just one can do it. The lack of recourse is just poison icing on the cake.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I don't think it would be wrong if anything like a majority of the parents objected to a book. After all, it's not like school libraries are the only place children can find books, any outlier parent who wanted their child to read a book is free to provide their child with supplementary reading. The schools SHOULD respect majority opinion in this regard, it is not their job to thwart parental judgements.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that any parent who isn't providing their children with books at home isn't parenting right. The public schools' idea of age appropriate books is actually kind of pathetic if the child has been raised property; My son's favorite book in 1st grade was White Fang, and he sure didn't find it in the elementary school library section for his grade.

[bernard11]

I don't think it would be wrong if anything like a majority of the parents objected to a book.

I do. You end up with school libraries stocked with idiocy. Suppose a majority objected to talking about evolution, or to a book taking a view they don't like on some historical matter.

The fact is that not all parents do provide books, or encourage the use of the public library. The books the kid has access to are those in the school library.

[Brett Bellmore]

The point here is that if a majority of the parents WANT idiocy, they're entitled to get it. Good and hard, maybe, but get it.

If the public schools decide that they're entitled to indoctrinate kids in views that their parents find abhorrent, ("Bwah ha ha!") and somehow manage to make it stick, then expect that, in a functioning democracy, the public schools will be abolished.

And if you're counting on democracy not being functioning, what else will it not be functioning on? Just stuff that turns out good?

In the mean time, the minority are perfectly entitled to teach their children evolution or whatever in their own time, on their own dime, just as I responded to the new math by teaching my son how to do algebra in a way that actually works.

[Sarcastr0]

Populism is good sometimes, not all the time.

[Stephen Lathrop]

The point here is that if a majority of the parents WANT idiocy, they're entitled to get it.

Maybe the government should not be in the business of further disadvantaging their kids?

If the public schools decide that they're entitled to indoctrinate kids in views that their parents find abhorrent, ("Bwah ha ha!") and somehow manage to make it stick, then expect that, in a functioning democracy, the public schools will be abolished.

That is indeed a risk in a non-functioning democracy, regardless of what the schools do. I don't fear that very much, though. I think parents that stupid will remain safely in the minority, and a public project to help their kids out of their misfortune will make such parents even less common in the future.

If my estimate turns out wrong, then I guess smart parents will have to do what you did, and stupid parents will raise stupid kids.

[Brett Bellmore]

So, basically you figure that democratic government should only be responsive to the voters to the extent the voters agree with you, and view a democracy that IS responsive to voters who disagree with you as non-functioning.

I kind of figures that, but I didn't think you'd so clearly own up to that view.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" The point here is that if a majority of the parents WANT idiocy, they're entitled to get it. "

That is a profoundly stupid statement. It is part of the reason better Americans dismiss you as a crackpot.

Why does your blog attract so many stupid misfits (who hate modern America), Prof. Volokh?

[bernard11]

The point here is that if a majority of the parents WANT idiocy, they're entitled to get it

Let them teach all the idiocy they want at home. They have no right to consign other kids than their own to a bad education. They have no right to use the schools to spread misinformation and ignorance.

In the mean time, the minority are perfectly entitled to teach their children evolution or whatever in their own time, on their own dime, just as I responded to the new math by teaching my son how to do algebra in a way that actually works.

Sorry, Brett. This is no good libertarian silliness.

It's entirely possible to want your kids to learn algebra even if you yourself don't know enough to teach it to them. What percentage of the population do you think could come close to explaining how to solve quadratic equations?

It's entirely possible to want them to learn proper biology even if you are not a biologist, or if you lack the time needed to do the teaching.

That's part of the reason we have public schools, after all.

[Brett Bellmore]

You don't seem to accept that people disagree about what is idiocy, and that one person's curing ignorance is another person's consigning children to a bad education. (Like 'new math', for instance.)

It is fundamentally unjust to compel people to pay for the dissemination of doctrines they find offensive, and positively totalitarian to demand that parents consent to their children being taught things they find offensive.

But, of course, public schools are primarily indoctrination centers, and only secondarily about remedying ignorance. Were the latter their primary goal, government would content itself with subsidizing private schools, in the same way it subsidizes food for the poor, instead of taxing us all to the point where most people couldn't afford to eat, and setting up public cafeterias

The voters will understandably insist that any indoctrination be something they agree with, and in a functioning democracy, they'd have their way.

[David Nieporent]

Let them teach all the idiocy they want at home. They have no right to consign other kids than their own to a bad education. They have no right to use the schools to spread misinformation and ignorance.

I mean, as an empirical argument, that's false. In a democracy the majority actually does have that right.

As a normative matter, your statement might be true, but it's pretty useless since in fact there needs to be someone who distinguishes idiocy from brilliance, misinformation from information. And (circling back) in a democracy, that someone will be the majority.

[ReaderY]

Well, most if not all schools prevent students from having acess to, say, Uzbeq or Swahili or Ladino, since they don’t offer them. And is the reason why really anything other than that parents don’t like them?

[bernard11]

No. The reason most likely is dealing with budget and space constraints in the context of levels of demand and interest and educational value.

[Snorkle]

This should be entertaining. Schools will have zero books pretty soon.

Hell, I'll help, and Republicans seem to like bounties these days, so - $.05 for each book an Oklahoma resident can demonstrate they got removed from a school.

[Snorkle]

^ Religious book, missed a word.

[John F. Carr]

Friends of a friend used the parental controls on their cable box, meant to keep sexy stuff away from kids, to lock out religious programming.

[John F. Carr]

I could imagine a court concluding that the right to remove was limited to the types of books in the first paragraph. Or not. But there's a custom saying that laws should be construed narrowly to save them from constitutional problems unless the court has an especially strong desire to invalidate the law. If narrowly construed you could read the notice and takedown provision as a safe harbor: the school's judgment controls unless it has actual knowledge that a parent objects.

[Noscitur a sociis]

But there's a custom saying that laws should be construed narrowly to save them from constitutional problems unless the court has an especially strong desire to invalidate the law.

But, as Prof. Volokh pointed out, the statute isn't unconstitutional—just very stupid.

If narrowly construed you could read the notice and takedown provision as a safe harbor: the school's judgment controls unless it has actual knowledge that a parent objects.

I'm not following. The cause of action under the statute only applies if the school doesn't act on a parent's request.

[John F. Carr]

If a court adopts the narrow reading of the bill then the parental notice is like a DMCA takedown notice. A (web host, library) is not liable for (copyright infringement, immorality) until it has been formally notified, and even then it is not liable unless there was an underlying violation of law.

[Sidney r finkel]

I don't understand why the state just doesn't give every parent the right to burn down a public school library after removing any children from it but leaving the heretics involved in the book selection process inside to burn, (an old but effective remedy for heresy).

Wouldn't this streamline the process and prevent a lot of hand wrining, litigation, moralizing and other acts that impede censorhip and have stopped imposition of relgion into the public schools?

And the other benefit, Iran would no longer refer to America as The Great Satan and consider us an enemy, but would embrace America as accepting the ruling methodology of the Ayotollahs.

[Longtobefree]

Never going to happen.
Open air burnings require a permit almost everywhere.

[Sidney r finkel]

Darn it

[MP]

Shouldn't we at least wait until these dumb bills get out of committee? At least critique something with legs, not simply one person's wet dream.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I agree that this bill probably isn't going to be enacted and it's important to keep that in perspective.

On the other hand, there's also utility calling out people in power when they do something dumb.

[Eugene Volokh]

Well, maybe critiquing the bill will help it not get out of committee (or will help the committee revise it).

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Oklahoma? The dumber the case for this bill, the more likely those yokels will pass it.

When a science professor asks 'name a planet features a vast expanse of red dirt with no sign of intelligent life?' the two proper answers are 'Mars and the one with Oklahoma.'

[bevis the lumberjack]

On the one hand, school boards need to be reasonable and avoid exposing students to overtly sexual stuff. Not because of prudeness or whatever, but because it’s just not their place.

On the other hand, this law gives power to the lowest common denominator, which is awful.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm pretty sure it's badly drafted, and will be up for prompt revision.

The thing is, even if this particular bill is a bit of a joke, there's a real problem here. Parents have been finding outright pornography in elementary school libraries. There's been a serious push to promote this stuff.

Remember, for every parent who doesn't want a high school to even have books admitting that sex exists, you'll find some progressive who thinks pre-pubescent children need a working knowledge of oral sex. BOTH extremes exist, and are at work in the country.

[Sarcastr0]

Dude, that's not 'outright pornography.'

And sex ed should start before puberty, for obvious hormonal reasons.

[Brett Bellmore]

Dude, that IS outright pornography.

[Sarcastr0]

A cartoony picture of a fully clothed blowjob and one of sex that doesn't show genitals, around which is a legitimate story?

Not porn.

You can say it's not appropriate for children, but outright pornography only if you're a Puritan.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Did you look at the link? I don’t vouch for the author, but if true that was outright porn and has no business within 1000 ft of any school. Any librarian that chose depictions of children giving oral to adults is committing a crime.

That’s what I’m talking about. The vast vast majority of people would object to that.

[Sarcastr0]

I did, and it absolutely does more than appeals to the prurient interest, and has serious literary value.

[Brett Bellmore]

Ah, so what you mean by "pornography" is only pornography. Whereas what we mean is, "pornography" regardless of whatever else it might be.

[Sarcastr0]

No, that's not what you mean. Because under that definition Michelangelo's David is porn.

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought David was just nude, not turgid and engaged in sex acts.

[Ridgeway]

You are confusing pornography with obscenity. Obscenity (as defined by the SCT) is a much narrower formulation.

[Sarcastr0]

I am not using the legal definition, except as persuasively.

Do you think that's porn? Because merely including a schlong doesn't make it porn. Nor does a static, clothed pic of a sex act, especially with contextual text.

[Ridgeway]

It is an almost universal truth that every time someone says, "There should be a law!" after some outrage, there shouldn't.

[Ben_]

"On the other hand, this law gives power to the lowest common denominator, which is awful."

It would be awful if school libraries or the books in them were very important.

The library doesn’t have a specific book? Well, the gymnasium sports equipment inventory doesn't have cricket bats.

[Martinned]

"of a sexual nature that a reasonable parent … would want to know of or approve of prior to their child being exposed to it" is just not a legally well-defined standard.

Well, it's not a million miles away from the standard used in securities law to decide what is or isn't material non-public information. And people go to jail for getting that wrong. (Not very often, but still.)

[TwelveInchPianist]

Everybody's gotta overreact to everything.

Having legitimate complaints about police abuses doesn't mean that you defund the police.

Just like having legitimate complaints about gay porn in the school library doesn't mean that you debook the library.

[Bob from Ohio]

No, you fire the librarian.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I suppose I don't know everyone's family dynamics or the resources in each town for obtaining books, but the idea, especially in the age of digital books, that parents are going to prevent kids from being "exposed" to bad books strikes me as so deeply ineffective and out of touch that it's hilarious. Especially for high school kids. Especially by using the school library as the primary target of this attempt. After a certain point...you just can't control what your independent minded kids read if they want to read something. And finding out that a parent pulled a book is just going to make kids more curious about it.

I think there is a term, very common on the political and cultural right, for a completely meaningless and futile gesture to demonstrate how good and pure you are. Vlurpre Furglins? That doesn't sound right....

[gormadoc]

I will say that I was in high school when phones were becoming ubiquitous. I don't think I ever looked at books in the library and I don't know if anybody I know ever did. The only people I knew who went to the library were playing video games on the computers. I don't think anybody would have ever known if there was pornography there.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I used the school and public library for research papers in high school. Nothing I was doing would bring me into contact with anything that a parent might oppose. (Well that's not exactly true, did a paper on socialism). But as far as just reading stuff, I would buy books with my spending money at Barnes and Noble or the discount book store in the mall or borrow stuff from friends. I remember like at least 10 people probably shared one kid's copy of Battle Royale (a book many parents would not want in the library).

Oh and I think all of my English teachers told us if someone bans or tries to ban a book you should go ahead and definitely read it. Which is why people were reading Lolita my sophomore year.

[bevis the lumberjack]

You may be right, but that doesn’t mean the goddam school should make it easily available.

[Seamus]

In Board of Ed. v. Pico, the Court split 4-4 on whether a public school may remove library books based on the books' viewpoint.

Interesting that four Supreme Court justices thought it would be unconstitutional to remove "The Turner Diaries" from school libraries because of its hateful content.

[hobie]

Wow. There is absolutely zero chance that this law would be abused

[Ben_]

So what if it is? What difference does it make if some random book can’t be found in a school library?

[Moderation4ever]

One upside is that a law like this could greatly reduce school library costs and just about any book could be removed. If fact you will often see lists of famous books that have been banned, like the Wizard of Oz a real problem. Now you start a list of the 10 books that could be acceptable for a school library. If you could find 10 acceptable books?

[Ridgeway]

The publishers probably have a strict no refunds policy.

[Bob from Ohio]

Bill needs a Board of Education review process and perhaps a higher removal threshold.

Parents should be able to object to materials though.

[Sarcastr0]

Anyone can object to anything, it's a free country.

[Noscitur a sociis]

While the substance of the bill certainly merits mockery, Section 3 is also worth noting:

It being immediately necessary for the preservation
of the public peace, health or safety, an emergency is hereby
declared to exist, by reason whereof this act shall take effect and
be in full force from and after its passage and approval.

[hobie]

Oh god it does say that. That is absolutely bizarre.

[Bob from Ohio]

Most states [and cities] have a delay between a bill being signed and the law coming into full effect. But if it passes as an "emergency", sometimes with a super majority requirement, it goes into effect right away. In Ohio, a bill passed as an "emergency" cannot be a subject of a repeal referendum, so that might be another advantage.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Yes, I understand what the practical effect of that provision is. It's just odd to me that someone actually included it with an apparently straight face.

[Toranth]

Some places this is common. Oregon does it on most bills, it seems - just recently, the state passed an "emergency" bill that... slightly redefined cannabinoid products categories for tax purposes.

[myself]

Is it just me or is the structure of the bill similar to SB-8? Ie it leaves enforcement to parents, not state officials, so there's no one to sue to stop it.

[ReaderY]

Let me ask this question. Is there a meaningful difference, for First Amendment purposes, between a decision to remove somethkng from the curriculum or library and a decision not to add it in the first place?

Why can’t parents who want books in Uzbeq, Swahili, or Ladino (or any of hundreds of other languages) sue to prevent the censorship of these languages and require libraries to stock books in them as a matter of their Firsr Amendment Rights?

[Brett Bellmore]

I will say that, in my experience, librarians are sometimes determined to keep certain books out of libraries, and not for the reasons motivating this particular law. I've actually donated pro-gun books to a public library that stocked anti-gun books, only to have the librarians throw them out. (Or constructively so, anyway: They were new hardcovers, and the librarians put them in their next used book sale for under a dollar.)

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, in that respect your gun books got exactly the same treatment almost every donated book gets in every budget-restricted public library. Library collections are curated. Librarians lack shelf space to add books they regard as high priority, let alone space for every random donation which comes in.

To make room, librarians regularly de-access books they previously thought were needed, but which they now discover impede their ability to add more recent books which are needed more. That collection management process is a huge part of what librarians do must do with their time.

Maybe it would help if librarians said that outright to the myriad would-be book donors they encounter. But they find that to be impolitic—so they mostly just accept the gifts, and hope to get some spare change from the best of the surplus-on-arrival contributions. Conversations about collection management would just expose them to time-consuming and unproductive back-and-forth about library priorities. Which, pretty obviously, would include conversations with you.

But of course there is also a possibility that they took a look at your pro-gun books, and judged them to be full of the kind of tendentious crap that fills up so many pro gun books—stuff like self-reported data asserting a million or more defensive gun uses a year. Maybe they decided that kind of stuff cannot earn a place on a shelf next to anti-gun books written by authors who use scholarly methods. Maybe they are eagerly awaiting your return, hoping for better—maybe even an offer of pro-gun books that can get over a lowish bar for forthright, dispassionate analysis. I read one of those once, so it is not impossible.

Before suspecting conspiracy, review the possibilities.

[Brett Bellmore]

"But of course there is also a possibility that they took a look at your pro-gun books, and judged them to be full of the kind of tendentious crap that fills up so many pro gun books"

They had "Arming America". After the scandal had lost it the prize. The book I donated was by one of the Conspirators...

Yes, librarians curate. Sometimes ideologically.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Brett, get your story straight. Your first comment said you donated, "books," plural, now you mention you donated, "The book," singular. You aren't making all this up, are you? Which tendentious pro-gun conspirator, by the way?

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, I donated multiple books. One was by Kopel. (Well, he edited it, and was the main contributor) "Guns, Who Should Have Them?" He was a co-author of another, "No More Wacos". And, of course, there was "More Guns, Less Crime" by Lott, he was a conspirator at one time. And there was a compilation of Founding era documents on the topic, but I don't recall the title.

It was a small rural library, in Capac, Michigan, and I assure you that the librarians were not representing local opinion by stocking guns in favor of gun control, and rejecting any opposing it.

[ReaderY]

But this argument is exactly why there is no First Amendment issue here either. As you say, no library can stock more than a tiny fraction of a percent of all tbe books in the world. If it is “censorship” violating the First Amendment to decline to stock a book because you think it’s crap, then all libraries are always in violation of the First Amendment.

To call not stocking (say) Catcher on the Rye because someone in Oklahoma thinks it’s crap censorship, while not stocking pro-gun rights books because you think they’re crap not censorship, is simply to define censorship as not stocking books because of a viewpoint (an idea about what is and isn’t crap) that you disagree with. If you agree with the viewpoint labeling the book crap it’s fine, if you disagree with it suddenly it’s censorship.

That’s simply using the courts to impose your views. It would be like saying government support of Jewish or Moslem institutions is an establishment of religions, but government support of Cheistianity is fine because Chrostianity isn’t relgion, it’s simply the truth. Same here. Viewpoint discrimination is discrimination based on ANY viewpoint, not just ones you disapprove of.

If government and not the courts get to pick a few thousand of the millions of books out there to stock a library, they get to select which ones to pick based on any criteria they want, not just the criteria a plaintiff can persuade a judge are the “right” or “appropriate” criteria.

[Rossami]

We can't permanently get rid of crooked cops but we can blacklist librarians who won't burn books. Yeah, we have our priorities straight...

[Ben_]

If there were no librarians, would it be difficult to get books? No.

[Formerly Known as Stash]

This is may be the best thing for books ever. Banning books makes people want to read them. Is anybody even asking, hey, has any kid even checked out any suspect book? When I was in middle school, geek that I was, I went to the school library just about every afternoon after classes (the library was open 'til 5 in the vain hope that kids would use it), and invariably the place was empty except for me. I'd take books out, and the checkout cards that were kept in a pocket on the inside cover were usually blank, i.e. they had never been checked out before.

And this was pre-internet. In this age of screens, are any kids even using the school libraries? Hopefully, this brouhaha will get them to go see what forbidden fruit is lurking on the shelves--as if they couldn't find stuff equally "offensive" on the web. It seems to me that a good business opportunity would be to set up a website selling all the books tossed by schools under political pressure or statutes like this one. "Banned in Boston" used to be a great marketing tool, emblazoned on book covers. "Banned in Oklahoma" doesn't have quite the same ring, but maybe it will do.
"They can't stop the signal, Mal."

[bevis the lumberjack]

Sure man, start with that graphic novel that Bellmote linked to above. Read it to a 14 year old them tell us how your trial went.

[Formerly Known as Stash]

Uh, that was only found at public libraries, not at school libraries. Doubt very much it was is in the children's section.

My point was that there just aren't a lot kids scouring libraries for reading material. Heck, if you don't want a kid to read it, probably the best place to hide it is in the library, where they never go, with the other boring stuff. Give them the titles and subject matter and scream about it, and they are just a google away. It's another example of the Streisand effect.

[ReaderY]

This is a good point. The Oklahoma Legislature may well end up doing these books a favor and getting them a wider readership.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Hell, man. At first blush, as I posted above, I thought this law was awful.

But looking at the excuses that those of y’all on the left are making for pushing garbage to minors, I’m having second thoughts. If the library is gonna be chock full of trash, best not to have a library at all. I ain’t talking Romeo and Juliet or Catcher In the Rye. It’s not the fucking librarian’s place to introduce my kids to pure sexual content.

[Formerly Known as Stash]

You're right. That's the job of their phones.

[bevis the lumberjack]

If they find it in their own, whatever. But it’s not the job of the adults hanging around to provide it. I sure the hell would never dream of showing your kids explicit sex, in any flavor.

My kids are grown now, but the with the attitude that some of y’all have I’d have done my best to protect them from you. And we were generally permissive parents. Y’all are crazy though.

[Formerly Known as Stash]

I wouldn't either. But they will find it, especially if told where to look for it. Weren't you ever a kid? When I was in grammar school someone found a torn, literally half-burnt piece of porno in a trash can, and soon the whole school had seen it.

[Ben_]

"It’s not the fucking librarian’s place to introduce my kids to pure sexual content."

You must think children are more important than whatever uses the alphabet people have for children.

[Ben_]

The common thread in so many of these controversies is government workers not even trying to serve the public.

So many of them see the people as toys for them to play with, or as cattle to be milked for fines or fees or some other money, or as subjects to be experimented on, or as parasites that must be controlled and eventually eliminated for the Earth.

[Sarcastr0]

Government worker? This is a lawmaker doing something they think will be popular.

You've got this narrative that has burned grooves into your brain.

[Ben_]

School librarians are government workers. Among the least needed of all government workers.

[Ben_]

Aside from ordering books and entering them into the system when they arrive, approximately 100% of a librarians' job could be replaced by software and automated warehousing. It would be better for users and taxpayers.

Want a book, ask for it and the system gets it for you. Want to browse shelves? Render shelves on a screen. Check out a book? Automatic. Have a question? Google it. Need a suggestion? Google it.

Looking forward to better government services at much lower cost, with no personnel to inflict their politics on the systems' users. Hopefully red states start implementing systems like this soon.

[Brett Bellmore]

In fact, some smaller schools are now finding it sufficient to hand out Kindle E readers with appropriate content. Saves remarkably on shelf space.

[Ben_]

Some people will say kindles are a poor substitute. But an automated system to store and retrieve physical books would be an ideal substitute with all upsides and no downsides.