[A local resident made the statement below at the SPLD board meeting on July 28, 2025.]
I am here today to urge the board to add an item to next meeting’s agenda to discuss amending the Collection Development Policy to protect children from harmful material.
Under Tex. Govt. Code § 551.042, the board may deliberate and decide on a proposal to place the subject of a citizen’s comment on the agenda for a subsequent meeting.
The tide is turning in favor of libraries enacting common-sense protections for children.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals—one level below the Supreme Court—ruled in May that public libraries can remove books from their collections without violating the First Amendment. To quote directly from the en banc majority opinion in Little v. Llano County:
It is one thing to tell the government it cannot stop you from receiving a book. The First Amendment protects your right to do that. … It is another thing for you to tell the government which books it must keep in the library. The First Amendment does not give you the right to demand that. See, e.g., Pico, 457 U.S. at 889 (Burger, C.J., dissenting) (“[T]here is not a hint in the First Amendment, or in any holding of th[e] [Supreme] Court, of a ‘right’ to have the government provide continuing access to certain books.”). …
Take a deep breath, everyone. No one is banning (or burning) books. If a disappointed patron can’t find a book in the library, he can order it online, buy it from a bookstore, or borrow it from a friend. All Llano County has done here is what libraries have been doing for two centuries: decide which books they want in their collections. That is what it means to be a library—to make judgments about which books are worth reading and which are not, which ideas belong on the shelves and which do not.1
This is not about anyone’s personal or political beliefs. This is about protecting children from harmful content. Like this excerpt from Doing It:
A lot of people have sex when or after they’ve been drinking, so there have to be some good things about it. Alcohol lowers your inhibitions and can give you a bit of “Dutch courage,” which in turn can give you the confidence to say what you really want sexually, truly express yourself, and maybe also allow you to try new things. It can be a great tool for helping you explore your sexuality. Alcohol can give you that warm, fuzzy, relaxed feeling so you worry less about what other people think of you, and it can also make you feel turned on, especially bio-sex females. And I can back this up from personal experience. Public spaces where alcohol is consumed can facilitate an environment of sharing, bonding, and flirting. And kissing in bars and clubs is usually very acceptable. Yay alcohol!
Or these words of advice from This Book Is Gay:
In big cities all around the world, there are places that cater to gay men’s seeming obsession with sex. Saunas, or ‘bath houses’, are dotted all over the country, and they are perfectly legal. People … pay some money to enter and then have a bit of a sauna and some random sex. Again, this is fine as long as you’re safe.
Senate Bill 412 is a step in the right direction. I am also grateful to library staff for the steps they are taking to empower parents to have more visibility into and control over their children’s reading choices.
But the fact remains that these books, and others like them, are written to children and teens. So as long as they are in our collection, they will end up in the hands of minors.
Please do the right thing. Protect our kids from harmful material by amending the Collection Development Policy.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
- Little v. Llano County, 5th Cir. 2025, majority opinion. ↩︎
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