Federal judge hears arguments on Mat-Su school district book removal case

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - For nearly an hour Monday, an attorney representing the ACLU of Alaska and Northern Justice Project and a lawyer representing the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District went back and forth on a key question: Can a school district remove challenged books before a review process determines whether there is a good reason for the removal?

The ACLU and the Northern Justice Project asked U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason Monday afternoon to issue a preliminary injunction ordering the books be returned to school library shelves.

The school district countered that it’s not a federal judge’s role to intervene in school district policy at this stage and that any complaints about books that are banned should wait until the review process is complete.

Savannah Fletcher, the attorney for the Northern Justice Project, argued that students have been harmed and continue to be harmed by district policy. The district removed all 56 challenged books while the Library Citizens Advisory Committee began discussing and voting on whether to recommend those books be permanently removed or returned to the library. It is ultimately up to the school board on whether to accept or reject the committee’s recommendations.

The initial complaints against the books were received by the district in April of 2023; so far, only 18 books have been fully reviewed by the committee. One was removed and five are being reviewed now by district officials.

School district attorney John Ptacin told the judge that the other 12 were recently returned to school libraries.

That leaves 38 books still before the committee.

Some of the titles flagged are “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky; “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold; and “Sold” by Patricia McCormick. One book, “It Ends With Us” by Colleen Hoover, was determined to be obscene and removed permanently and “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut was among the books returned to the library.

Ptacin told the judge the appropriate time to challenge district policy is after all the books have been reviewed and asked the judge, “How much does a federal court wish to get involved in local school district policy?”

Ptacin told the court that it’s up to the school board to decide how to handle the review process and that just because the books are not on school shelves, does not mean students are not allowed to get copies from other sources and read the challenged books.

But Fletcher argued that the district must show significant “content based reasons” before removing the books. Otherwise, removal violates the First Amendment rights of students. She argued someone’s “discomfort” with a book is not enough and that obscenity or some similar high bar must be reached prior to removing a book.

At the end of oral arguments, Gleason said that she found the issue “challenging” and would issue a decision as soon as she could.

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