EveryLibrary rejects government-speech rationale
EveryLibraryLibrary advocacy organization
EveryLibrary rejects treating the disputed removals as government speech and calls the approach censorship.
Responding to
Treating public-library collection decisions as government speech wrongly shields viewpoint-based censorship.
“EveryLibrary rejects this ruling and the dangerous, contradictory logic it relies upon.”
Official statement
Original text
Where this statement fits
Llano County's library book removals raise a government-speech dispute
The Fifth Circuit's May 23, 2025 en banc opinion rejected library patrons' Free Speech Clause challenge over 17 books removed from Llano County's public library collection. The county argued that removing books from its collection did not abridge patrons' speech and that collection choices are government speech. Ten judges joined the judgment and the holding that the patrons could not rely on a right to receive information to challenge the removals. Seven of those judges also treated collection choices as government speech. EveryLibrary rejects that reasoning. The Supreme Court denied review on December 8, 2025. That denial left the lower-court judgment in place but is not a Supreme Court ruling endorsing its reasoning.
Source and context
Official statement
About this source
EveryLibrary's May 27, 2025 statement criticizing the en banc ruling. It dates the ruling May 24; the opinion is dated May 23.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Original text
About this source
The court reverses the preliminary injunction and dismisses the patrons' Free Speech Clause claims.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
EveryLibrary's May 27, 2025 statement responded to the Fifth Circuit's en banc ruling. It attributed the government-speech reasoning to the ten-judge majority, although only seven judges joined that part of the opinion.
After the quotation
EveryLibrary went on to say the ruling allows officials to remove library books for ideological reasons, which it called government censorship.
How this statement is classified
The label describes this statement's response within the context above.
Why this label?
EveryLibrary criticizes the county's legal defense and the ruling allowing the contested removals.
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More from this case
Read the full caseLlano County defends library collection discretion
Llano County
“The First Amendment’s Speech Clause is implicated only by government acts that “abridge” the freedom of speech.”Read statement
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The Dispute Index. "EveryLibrary rejects government-speech rationale". First published: 2026-10-15. Last updated: 2026-10-15. https://disputeindex.com/events/5768-everylibrary-rejects-treating-the-disputed-removals-as-government