Eighth Circuit tosses lawsuit challenging Missouri school district’s book-banning policy

ST. LOUIS (CN) — Finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing, the Eighth Circuit on Friday tossed a lawsuit filed by a group of parents challenging a suburban Kansas City school district’s book-banning policy.

The unanimous decision by the three-judge panel upheld a decision from a federal court, which had previously granted the Independence School District's motion to dismiss.

At issue is a school board policy that automatically removes library materials, including books, immediately after receiving a challenge and before any review or vote.

The ACLU filed suit against the Independence School District on behalf of four parents in December 2022. The parents, who have children in the district’s elementary, middle and high schools, claim the district’s book removal policy is unconstitutional.

The Eighth Circuit on Friday disagreed. Judges contrasted this case with another from Iowa, in which parents challenged a school district’s policy intended to prevent bullying and harassment of students based on their gender identity.

“This case meaningfully differs from Linn Mar, which concerned a policy stifling students’ free speech,” U.S. Circuit Judge Lavenski R. Smith, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in the 14-page opinion. “The present case, by contrast, does not concern a policy that arguably proscribes the plaintiffs’ children’s speech.”

"In fact," Smith added, "for the automatic-removal policy to affect the children’s conduct — their access to materials in the school library — 'a hypothetical, future challenge, in which a book is automatically removed pending review’ must occur.”

Neither the plaintiffs' attorney nor the school district’s attorney immediately responded to requests for comment.

In their lawsuit, the parents claimed that automatic removal of library materials without an appeal process violated students' First Amendment and due process rights because it restricts their access to ideas and information for an improper purpose and without any prior notice. The policy allows for books to be removed on any basis, including because of views expressed in the material.

The April 2022 removal of the book "Cats vs. Robots Volume 1: This is War" sparked the lawsuit. The challenge form submitted by a parent cited only a “non-binary discussion chapter” as the basis for the complaint.

While representing the plaintiffs in an April 2024 hearing, ACLU attorney Gillian Wilcox argued that the policy has already been enforced. She noted that it applies to all schools within the district — meaning that when a parent in one school files a complaint, the book in question is immediately removed districtwide.

But Independence School District attorney J. Drew Marriott, of the educational legal firm EdCounsel, was adamant during the hearing that the plaintiffs’ arguments were based on hypotheticals. The federal appeals court concurred.

“Notably, this case involves no allegation that the plaintiffs’ children have engaged in self-censorship to avoid punishment as a result of the District’s automatic-removal policy,” Smith wrote. “Instead, ‘the ‘imminent threat’ cited by [the] [p]laintiffs is that, at some point in the future, a book may be challenged ... and temporarily removed from school libraries.’”

 The Independence School District serves more than 14,000 students in the western suburbs of Kansas City. It has three high schools, four middle schools and 20 elementary schools, according to its website.

U.S. Circuit judges Roger L. Wollman, a Ronald Reagan appointee, and L. Steven Grasz, a Donald Trump appointee, joined Smith on the three-judge panel.

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