Librarians Suing Over Wrongful Termination for Defending Books Are Winning: Book Censorship News, September 11, 2026

But every single one of these settlements is a significant win right now. Each represents a librarian who did their job by defending the First Amendment rights of every person in their community. Each also represents something we simply have not seen play out well in the courts right now: decisive insight into whether public libraries exist to serve the will of the taxpayers or the political whims of whatever party is in charge. Though there are numerous ongoing federal cases, what we’ve seen from the courts thus far in library censorship lawsuits has been the right’s assault on freedoms for all deemed legal. Little v. Llano County in the Fifth Circuit last year stated that library collections in three states–Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas–were allowed to be reflections of the political beliefs of those in charge and not, in fact, the needs or interests of those whose tax money pays for those libraries. That case has been cited beyond those three states as justification for widespread book censorship in both public and school libraries, including in Crookshanks et al. v. Elizabeth School District, a case out of Colorado now in the 10th Circuit. Little v. Llano County wasn’t the ...