With apologies to William Shakespeare, I have appropriated the famous line from Romeo and Juliet to help explain why Huntington Beach’s “Community Parent-Guardian Review Board [for] Procurement of Children’s Library Materials” is unconstitutional censorship under the First Amendment. This is a “book ban,” even if the measure’s proponents want to run away from the word.
The First Amendment protects us from a government arbitrarily trying to control our speech and our right to access knowledge. Federal courts have held the following activities, when motivated by the book’s viewpoint, to be unlawful government censorship:
removing a children's book to the adult section of a public library. Sund v. City of Wichita Falls, , 121 F.Supp.2d 530 (N.D.Texas 2000) (emphasis added);
moving books to a place in the library where they are visible but require a child to have parental permission to check out the book. Counts v. Cedarville School District, 295 F. Supp. 2d 996 (W.D. Arkansas 2003) (emphasis added);
“regulations that suppress, disadvantage, or impose differential burdens upon speech because of its content.” Sund,121 F.Supp.2d at 550 (quoting Turner Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC, 512 U.S. 622, 641 (1994) (emphasis in original)).
Recall that the City Council majority’s politically appointed Library “Review Board” has the power to preventthe library from placing a book into its collection based on the Board’s opinion of the book’s content.
In addition, Huntington Beach Municipal Code § 2.66.030 reads: the Board is to make its judgements “beforesuch … books are purchased by the City prior to placement in circulation” (emphasis added)).”
If such a book is not considered “banned,” then how shall we describe it?
And here’s where they said the “quiet part” out loud: the stated purpose of the City Council agenda itemcreating this scheme is “to make these books/materials … unavailable.”
Split hairs, if you wish, over whether “to make unavailable” equals a “ban.” The court in the Sund decision declared such semantics to be “absurd.” Whether the government relocates, restricts access, or removesbooks based on the books’ content, it’s all the same – unconstitutional censorship, and it stinks.
Censorship proponents say they simply want to “protect children.” Choosing what our children read is the job of parents and professional educators, not political appointees who are chosen to score points with a narrow constituency.
We all want to protect children. The First Amendment simply requires that we do so in a way that places parents, not the government, in the role of deciding what their own children read.
Were he alive today, I hope Shakespeare would forgive me taking liberties with his play to beat back these grievous attacks on our First Amendment rights – another of his plays, The Merchant of Venice, was banned from libraries in New York in 1949. I think he would understand.
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