The Mat-Su Borough School District yanked more than 56 books from the shelves of its school libraries in April 2023 following the rise in right-wing efforts to ban books. The idea was for a book club-like group of citizens to review the challenges and forward a recommendation to the school board to make the final call.
The process has proven glacial. The vast majority of the challenged books have yet to undergo the review process. As of this week, just 18 had been reviewed.
On Monday, an attorney representing the Northern Justice Project and the ACLU of Alaska argued to U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason that the decision to yank books before the review was completed violates students’ right to free speech. As a remedy, Northern Justice Project Attorney Savannah Fletcher argued the books should remain on shelves pending the review.
“We’re not trying to control the review process. They’re the ones that have chosen to do an abnormal review process,” she said, arguing that the board invented this long process despite already having a workable policy on the books. “It’s already been an entire school year … The majority of these books still have not had any determination made on them by the school board, and won’t be back on the shelves by then.”
She said the situation would be better handled by the existing policy that has school administrators review flagged materials and provide recommendations to the school board. Instead, the plaintiffs have argued that this new process is essentially a sham intended to make it more difficult for students to access books containing issues around minorities, LGBTQ people and general reproductive health.
Some of the affected books include Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five” and Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner.”
Monday’s challenge is part of a larger legal challenge against the Mat-Su School District over the book bannings, which is still in its early stages.
During oral arguments, Mat-Su Borough School District attorney John Ptacin defended the decision to pull books before they were reviewed, likening the books to a hypothetical racist book from the early 1900s and questioning whether it should stay on shelves while a review is being done.
He also suggested a court order requiring the books to be returned would be the equivalent of the judge ordering the distribution of obscene and indecent materials to minors.
“How did books get in the library in the Mat-Su?” he said. “It’s not as if there’s a committee that brings them in. There’s over 400,000 titles. Local librarians are making these decisions. You know what? Librarians make mistakes, they make errors. They say it’s the hot new read and then all of the sudden you have what could be considered under Alaska law obscene and indecent to minors, and we’re finding that’s the case … If you were to do what they’re asking you to do, arguably, you’re being asked to put obscene materials back on shelves.”
He noted that the committee recently voted 11-0 to find Colleen Hoover’s book “Ugly Love” was obscene and should be removed from shelves.
He conceded that most of the books that have gone through the review have actually passed the committee and have been returned to shelves.
According to his arguments, the book review committee has only successfully removed one book from the school shelves. Five that have been recommended for removal have yet to be taken up by the school board. The remaining 12 books have since been returned.
Judge Gleason said she will issue a ruling soon.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.