In suing a Kansas City school district over its restrictions on library materials, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Missouri is doing the bidding of the teacher’s unions, according to a parents' rights advocate.
“The ACLU is not following their mandate,” said Andrew Wells, Missouri state chapter president of No Left Turn in Education. “The ACLU's mandate was supposed to be civil liberties. Their civil function is supposed to be defending the constitution of the United States and the U.S. federal courts have already determined that it is constitutional to remove books that are not age appropriate.”
Wells was reacting to a lawsuit in which the ACLU alleges that Independence School District’s current policy violates students’ First Amendment rights by restricting their access to ideas and information for an improper purpose and without any prior notice.
“They filed it because some woke parents decided they were going to fight back,” he said. “The problem is a federal court has already ruled in the Wentzville case that the school board does have the authorization to remove books they do not feel are age appropriate. They have that legal responsibility and authority.”
On Aug. 5, Judge Matthew Schelp denied a motion for a preliminary injunction against the Wentzville School District in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
“Plaintiffs seek to enjoin Defendant, the Wentzville R-IV School District, from following its policy that allows parents, guardians, and students to initiate challenges to library materials, and Plaintiffs also ask the Court to require the District to restore access to any books it has removed from school libraries during the most recent school year,” the Memorandum and Order states. “For the reasons the Court will explain herein, Plaintiffs have failed to show that the relevant factors weigh in favor of a preliminary injunction in this case, and the Court therefore will deny the Motion."
The lawsuit filed on Dec. 6 challenges the children’s book “Cats vs. Robots #1: This Is War,” which contains a nonbinary character and was removed while under review, according to media reports.
Nonbinary refers to being gender queer.
"They didn't ban it," Wells told the St. Louis Record. "They removed it because of it being age-inappropriate. The lawsuit pushes the narrative that we are trying to ban books. We are not trying to ban books. There's nothing that says it cannot be in a public library and any consenting adult can go check out that book all day long."
The school board subsequently approved permanently removing the book from elementary school shelves.
“This lawsuit is frivolous, to say the least,” Wells added. “All this is doing is trying to make headlines.”