One of the biggest tools in the arsenal when it comes to book censorship in the United States is the judicial system. Whether that’s for better or for worse remains a big question mark, especially under the current federal administration. Lawsuits, however, are a crucial means by which the average citizen learns where and how the rights granted to them via the Constitution actually apply. That includes the First, Tenth, and Fourteenth Amendments, three of the most relevant when it comes to where and how the government can ban books in public and public school libraries.

In December 2025, the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in Little v. Llano County. This case, which had seen legal victory after legal victory, was dealt a blow in the Fifth Circuit. The en banc opinion held that materials in public libraries were government speech and therefore not subject to the free speech clause of the First Amendment. That ruling applies to public libraries in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Were this case to be heard by the Supreme Court, it would have either been overturned or been the basis for ideological book banning in public libraries nationwide. In a cynical, albeit not far-fetched, reading of the decision not to hear this case, one might believe that the books at the helm of Little v. Llano County didn’t lean enough into extreme partisan politics as they apply to the current titles being targeted by banners. The Supreme Court may be biding its time, hoping to hear the case out of Florida, where the state argues it has the right to ban books it deems inappropriate and cherry-picks examples from books that aren’t even those mentioned in the lawsuit.

The Supreme Court is just one place where decisions about the constitutionality of book bans may be made. There are several active lawsuits taking place nationwide worth keeping an eye on, as their outcomes can help inform thinking about whether and how the freedom to read may be established as an American right. Let’s take a look at seven cases currently in process, what they’re about, and what the implications of the rulings in these cases may be. This isn’t a comprehensive survey of current right-to-read lawsuits. But it does give a sense of who is bringing these cases to court and what rights others want to strip away from you and from every other American.

Penguin Random House v. Florida

As referenced above, this is the case that is being appealed to the 11th Circuit Court. Filed by Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster, Sourcebooks, the Authors Guild, bestselling authors Julia Alvarez, Laurie Halse Anderson, John Green, Jodi Picoult, and Angie Thomas, two students, and two parents, the plaintiffs challenged the ways the state removed books under House Bill 1069.

In August 2025, Judge Carlos Mendoza of the U.S. Middle District Court of Florida ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.  The 50-page decision, available here, states that the law used to pull books from Florida public schools is “overbroad and unconstitutional.” The judge emphasized that none of the books in the case met the definition of obscene.

The state appealed, relying heavily on the decision in Little v. Llano County as justification for its sweeping book bans. Little v. Llano County was a case related to public libraries, whereas the case here concerns public school libraries. The state also elected to lean into disinformation in their argument for appeal, pulling examples of what they deem “obscene” from books that were not part of the lower court’s ruling. Defendants also misquoted their own law, claiming that HB 1069 prohibits “sexually depictive content.” It does not.

Most disturbingly, in this case, as it stands now, is that 20 other state attorneys general filed an Amicus Brief. These are 20 other states that believe they have the right to decide what books can and cannot be on school library shelves, and these are 20 other states eager to strip away your constitutional rights.

This case is not a guarantee, and there are actions you can take right now to register your feelings about nearly half of the country’s leaders wanting to remove your right to read.

American Library Association v. Sonderling

In Rhode Island v. Trump, 21 state attorneys general secured a significant victory in their lawsuit against the shuttering of the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) late last fall. The judge in the case ruled that the Trump administration could not dismantle the agency, and all grants to states needed to be restored.

But this wasn’t the only lawsuit filed over the gutting of the IMLS. A second lawsuit, ALA v. Sonderling, was also filed. The timeline for the case requires the plaintiffs to submit their motion for summary judgment and response to the defendants’ cross-motion for summary judgment and motion to dismiss by February 17. Things should proceed quickly from there.

In May, the judge in this case denied the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction and allowed a temporary restraining order to expire. This wasn’t because he sided with the defendants; it was an issue of whether or not the case was filed in the correct court system. Indeed, the judge signaled that he didn’t believe that the administration was in the right when it came to their actions in dismantling the IMLS.

The judgment in Rhode Island will influence the outcome of this case. The future of the IMLS will depend on the outcome, but as of now, the IMLS is expected to continue as is. That is, of course, with the note that the agency does not have a budget for the 2026 fiscal year, as a result of republicans failing to pass one and shutting down the government last fall. The current budget for the IMLS runs only through the end of January.

Penguin Random House et al. v. Labrador

Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Sourcebooks, the Authors Guild, John Green, Malinda Lo, Dashka Slater, the Donnelley Public Library District, two students, two parents, and a teacher filed this lawsuit over Idaho’s book censorship law, HB 710. HB 710 allows parents to sue libraries over materials they deem to have “sexual content.” The plaintiffs noted that the vagueness of the law made it burdensome, as did the requirement that materials be moved to adults-only areas of the library. Donnelley Public Library stated early on that this would mean the small library would need to become adults-only, period.

PRH v. Labrador was one of two cases challenging the law. In July, a District Court judge stayed proceedings in the Penguin Random House case pending the outcome of the other case.

As of the time of writing, there’s still no decision in the first case. However, the hearing in the Ninth Circuit suggested that the judges weren’t especially sympathetic to the need for such a law. PRH v. Labrador will likely move quickly once the first case has a ruling. This case would have implications for numerous other states that have passed similar book censorship laws, as well as states like Wyoming that are considering doing so.

Penguin Random House et al. v. Reynolds

It’s been several years since Iowa passed its version of the “don’t say gay” law in May 2023, Senate File 496. Penguin Random House, the Iowa State Education Association, an Iowa high school student, two middle school teachers, a K-12 district librarian, and authors Laurie Halse Anderson, John Green, Malinda Lo, and Jodi Picoult filed a lawsuit in late 2023, charging that book ban provisions of the bill deny citizens their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

In August 2024, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the state of Iowa’s argument that library books represented government speech. The court allowed a district judge to conduct further review in determining whether the law permitted the banning of non-obscene books. This permitted the state to continue implementing the law after the State Board of Education issued its guidelines. As thoroughly reported by The Des Moines Register, books in Iowa public schools continued to disappear, despite many of the state’s largest districts not participating.

By March 2025, plaintiffs were granted a preliminary injunction in the case. The state would not be allowed to continue “enforcing or acting in furtherance of the
provisions of Senate File 496 that require the removal of books from school libraries that are not “age-appropriate.””

Iowa appealed the injunction in late April.

Oral arguments for this case, as well as the parallel case filed against this law by the ACLU of Iowa and Lambda Legal, took place on January 13 of this year. A lot will likely happen here in 2026. As it stands now, according to the ACLU of Iowa:

[T]hree portions of the law involved in the lawsuits remain largely blocked. They are:

1. A K-12 book ban for all books containing descriptions or depictions of sex
2. A K-6 don’t-say-LGBTQ provision that forbids programs, curriculum, instruction, and more relating to gender identity or sexual orientation
3. A forced outing provision that requires teachers and other school staff to report to parents if a student asks to use a name or pronoun relating to gender identity, regardless of whether that could put the student in danger.

O.R. v. Greenville County, South Carolina

Late last year, in a story that went widely underreported, the York County Public Library in South Carolina adopted a policy that not only bans books about “gender identity” for minors, but that also encourages the use of unprofessional, partisan book “ratings” sites by professional librarians for making library collection decisions. The banning of “gender identity” books wasn’t a fresh idea. The policy was initially adapted word-for-word from the neighboring Greenville Public Library, whose policy of relocating and restricting “trans” books for minors led them to be sued.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina, and local library patrons filed a lawsuit against the state’s most populous county over their new discriminatory policy. This is a First and Fourteenth Amendment case, arguing that by restricting, relocating, and banning books by or about trans people, the library’s policy violates patrons’ rights to access information.

This case could have implications not only in Greenville but also in other public libraries and public library systems that attempt to pass similar policies. York County, as noted above, is one example. There are others, too, including any of the public libraries in Tennessee that followed the demands of the state’s Secretary of State to remove “gender” books from youth collections. It could also impact school libraries, like those in Texas’s Katy Independent School District, which has a policy banning books on “gender identity.”

Read Freely Alabama v. Autauga-Prattville Public Library Board of Trustees

Autauga-Prattville Public Library (AL) has been subject to ceaseless scrutiny and attacks from both a local coalition of book banners—”Clean Up Prattville” among the loudest–and from the state itself, which has been demanding the removal of LGBTQ+ books from public libraries for several years. In Prattville, the library was at one point locked by library workers in protest against the book censorship decisions being made by the board, as well as the firing of the library director and other employees. That 2024 period of time led to a pair of lawsuits. The first was from the former director for being fired. That case was settled out of court.

The second lawsuit was filed in early May 2024 by Read Freely Alabama, who has been on the ground fighting against the censorship and destruction of Prattville Public Library. Read Freely Alabama is joined in the lawsuit by the Alabama Library Association — the state’s largest professional organization for library workers — and local community members who use the Prattville library.

Little happened with this case initially, but things picked up a bit in summer 2025. This was because the Alabama Public Library Service (APLS) demanded clearer policies that banned books they disliked in order to receive state funding (something that put a target on the back of Fairhope Public Library, among others). APLS did not believe that Prattville’s policies were clear enough, and so the board added a line to the policy that was subject of the lawsuit. That line read ““No books or materials containing obscene or sexually explicit content, or other content deemed inappropriate for children or youth, shall be located in the children’s section.” Lawyers in the case wondered if this new addition altered the case itself, to which both the plaintiffs and defendants said it did not.

Nothing has happened since then, but chances are we’ll see some news here in 2026. This lawsuit is similar to O.R. v. Greenville County, South Carolina, in terms of its implications at both the local and state levels for libraries and the freedom to read.

South Carolina Association of School Librarians v. Weaver

Earlier this month, the ACLU of Utah filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Estate of Kurt Vonnegut, three YA authors, and two public school students in the state. The lawsuit was filed in response to the state’s book-banning legislation, which requires all public schools to remove a title if it has been removed from three other districts. This has led to Utah banning a total of 22 titles from all public school students statewide.

South Carolina, like Utah, has a mechanism that allows the state to ban books in all public schools. Before Utah’s three new book bans in early January, South Carolina had the highest number of state-sanctioned bans. Also, before Utah’s lawsuit in January, South Carolina’s school librarian association, in conjunction with three public school students, filed a lawsuit against the head of the state education department over both the demands to remove books and a memo that called for classroom censorship.

SCASL v. Weaver would determine the role that the state has in deciding where and how it can dictate the books permitted in schools across the entire state. This case would have implications for the Utah case, and vice versa. Noteworthy in this case is that it was brought to the courts by library workers themselves. Indeed, South Carolina’s school librarians are among the most vocal and dedicated champions of intellectual freedom on the ground.

A few more cases to keep an eye on include Parnell v. School Board of Escambia County in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals; Crookshanks, et al. v. Elizabeth School District in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals; Condry v. Elizabeth School District et al; and Turpin v. Charlotte Latin School, in the North Carolina Supreme Court, which would have wide-ranging implications on the on-going battle over school voucher schemes. School librarian Amanda Jones has two cases proceeding through the court system as well, and both are related to defamation. One is against Michael Lunsford in Louisiana, and the other is against Dan Kleinman in New Jersey. Jones settled her case against Ryan Thames in November, wherein she received a public apology.

In the broader context of book censorship, all three cases involving Penguin Random House as the lead plaintiff highlight the role of states in determining what books are made available in public school libraries. These are First and Fourteenth Amendment cases, and they will play a significant role in deciding where and how library books are or are not considered “government speech.” This was the definition that judges in Little v. Llano County, as well as a judge in the Middle District Court of Florida, skirted around. This determination, were it to be made in any of these cases, will have a significant, institutionally altering impact on libraries.

Ultimately, the longer these cases persist, the longer American citizens are denied their constitutional right to access a broad range of materials in their taxpayer-funded libraries.

You can keep tabs on these cases with the handy censorship bot on Bluesky.

Book Censorship News: January 16, 2026

Top line story this week is this: for years, those working in the anti-book ban space have noted this isn’t about the books. It’s about silence and erasure of voices and perspectives that don’t uphold white supremacy. We’re seeing the gloves come completely off now. Bridget Ziegler, one of the original Moms for Liberty founders (and yes, the one embroiled in a sex scandal) and now chair of the Sarasota School Board, has made it clear that the district should collaborate with ICE. This is a direct call to harm marginalized young people and their families in Sarasota. It isn’t the books. It’s the people represented by those books that are deemed ban-worthy.

• As noted above, this week the court heard arguments in the case of Iowa’s book banning law.
• Ohio Republicans want to revive a part of their budget that was vetoed by the governor last year. They want to make it so public libraries must hide from view any LGBTQ+ books in the collection from minors.
• Tennessee’s Secretary of State, who demanded public libraries remove books that didn’t comply with a presidential executive order on gender, claims that such reviews are “routine.” Do not be gaslit into what politicians who are serving on the behest of an authoritarian to garner favor tell you.
• Washington County Library (TN) said they completed the review as required by the above-named Secretary of State, and they found no inappropriate books. Read this one for the nonsense over LGBTQ+ books causing “confusion” for children and that they should be cataloged in “age appropriate” areas. What “age appropriate” means is left unsaid.
• Randolph County Commissioners (NC), who fired the county library board last month for not banning a single trans picture book, may vote on new bylaws for the future library board next week. They’re going to make those board members puppets of the county commissioners, to be clear. Again: complete dissolution of a library board because that board did their job and did not ban a book.
• There are numerous concerning bills affecting libraries and the books available in them that are being considered by several state legislatures this year. Here are a handful and what they mean. You have plenty of time to take action on all of them.
• The debate continues in Victoria, Texas, over whether or not a small group of vocal citizens get to have nearly 50 books removed from the public library shelves.
• “Residents recently spoke up at a Palmyra Area School Board [PA] meeting with concerns that the board could reject a popular French language reader because it contains “fringe topics.” They’re mad about a coming-of-age book featuring topics relevant in other cultures. It’s a book in French. This is ridiculous.
• This story is paywalled, but Arkansas is about to enact the most strict restrictions on materials that those experiencing incarceration can have access to. Recall that prison censorship is already the number one First Amendment violation in America.
• Book banner Vicki Baggett is mad that a Santa Rosa, Florida, area high school library links to the website “whichbook,” which helps people determine which book they might like to read next. She wants the resource removed as a recommended website because it allows people to filter by sexual content.
• Alberta, Canada’s education minister is angry that Edmonton schools haven’t removed Flamer–a perfectly appropriate book for middle schoolers–from shelves.
• Francis Howell School District (MO) has received 53 book challenges recently, all from just two parents.
• The anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-trans agenda of the current administration is having a tangible effect on publishing. Fewer LGBTQ+ books are being acquired and published as a direct result.
• Speaking of fewer LGBTQ+ books being published, from Russia: “Russia’s largest book publisher Eksmo has shut down its embattled young-adult literature subsidiary Popcorn Books, which became a primary target of the Kremlin’s crackdown on so-called “LGBT extremism.””
• A Washoe, Nevada, man who was making a hobby of attending events at the public library that included drag performers and was banned for it, filed a lawsuit over the banning. A judge has thrown out the case. Attending children’s events as an adult isn’t normal, and it’s not normal to do it as some kind of “gotcha.” The brain washing and rotting is real.
• Abington Township Public Library (PA) became the target of a certain right-wing Twitter account for having a monthly club celebrating LGBTQ+ people. The library and the township’s commissioner posted some really heartening comments about why this program matters and why they’ll continue to offer it.
• A well-known book banner in Citrus County, Florida, continues to demand he be appointed to the public library board.
• After two lawsuits, here’s where Llano County Library (TX) stands now. Yeah, you should have a good policy for your collection management and development, and it should be inclusive.
• Remember how Sioux Center Library (IA) was going to create limited access library cards for youth, following a challenge to an adult book sitting in the adult section that was borrowed by a teenager (which they kept, to be clear)? Remember how those cards are a liability and likely violate state-level policy for many public libraries? That’s what’s happening here. The new cards are temporarily paused. I feel for this library because they’re getting so much heat for doing the right thing, but tiered cards like this are not a solution.
• A book about animal reproduction written for middle schoolers will remain on shelves in Orange County Schools (FL). A school board member had called it perverted.
• Local book banner in Garfield County, Colorado, adds another series of books to her list of books she believes the public library should ban. She also believes the First Amendment needs revision, so she’s a great and grounded human.
• Recall that last week, a Texas A&M University professor was told to remove Plato from their class syllabus, due to anti-DEI, anti-“gender ideology” laws. Here’s a piece about the long history of sexuality and Plato.