Request for Preliminary Injunction Calls for District to Restore Access to Banned Books and Stop the Ongoing Violation of Students’ First Amendment Rights
ST. LOUIS, MARCH 14, 2022 - The NAACP has joined the student plaintiffs in the class action complaint filed by the ACLU of Missouri against the Wentzville R-IV School District (the “District”) in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri to stop the removal or restriction of books presenting the viewpoints of racial and sexual minorities.
“The NAACP is joining this suit as a plaintiff on behalf of our members to protect the right of students to access inclusive storytelling and viewpoints that bring a deeper understanding of the inequities that exist in society and to hear from the voices of marginalized persons,” stated Nimrod Chapel, Jr., President of Missouri State Conference of the NAACP.
James LeNoir, St. Charles NAACP President, stated, “We are fighting race-based discrimination, the threat of government censorship and the harm of policies that make it easy to silence the voices and erase the stories of people of color by banning their books.”
On March 14, 2022, plaintiffs filed a motion for preliminary injunction requesting immediate court action to protect their constitutional rights. The preliminary injunction filing demonstrates how the book challengers and the District impermissibly targeted minority viewpoints in banning books using the District’s unconstitutional book-removal policy.
The Court must act to halt the District’s ongoing violation of the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights to receive the information and access the ideas contained in the banned books at their school libraries without interference from school officials based on their disagreement with the information or ideas conveyed, and to stop the practice of immediately removing books upon receipt of a complaint form.
“The Wentzville School District’s policies allow anyone to force any book from the shelves simply by submitting a complaint form,” stated Anthony Rothert, Director of Integrated Advocacy of the ACLU of Missouri. “In this case, the policy has been used to ban books by and about people and communities of color, LGBTQ people and other marginalized groups. In addition to violating students’ rights, banning books has the effect of attaching stigma and the risk of judgment against students who want to exercise their constitutional right to read them.”
At the time of the lawsuit filing on February 15, 2022, the District had banned All Boys Aren’t Blue by George Matthew Johnson; Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel; Gabi, a Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero; Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon; Invisible Girl: A Novel by Lisa Jewell; Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison; Modern Romance: An Investigation by Aziz Ansari and Eric Klinenberg; and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.
While the District has since restored access to some titles in response to this lawsuit, at least four books still remain inaccessible to students. The ACLU’s motion for preliminary injunction requests the Court to order the District to immediately return the still-banned books to shelves and cease further removals under its unconstitutional policy.
Link to March 14, 2022 Filing of Preliminary Injunction:
NAACP-ACLU-MO Preliminary Injunction – March 14, 2022
Links to Related Filings
AMENDED CLASS ACTION COMPLAINT FOR PROSPECTIVE RELIEF – FEBRUARY 25, 2022
CLASS ACTION COMPLAINT FOR PROSPECTIVE RELIEF - FEBRUARY 15, 2022
DEMAND FOR PRESERVATION OF ELECTRONIC & OTHER DISCOVERABLE ITEMS- FEBRUARY 2, 2022