By Michael Karlik | Colorado Politics
A federal judge on Thursday refused to put her prior ruling on hold while an appeal plays out, and instead ordered Elizabeth School District to return 19 restricted books to library shelves by Saturday.
U.S. District Court Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney rejected the Elbert County district’s claims that her original order was unfair, “breathtakingly broad” and would require whole new library policies. She also slammed the district for disclosing, only after she issued her order, that it had “discarded” the disputed books entirely.
“Rather than being forthcoming with the Court about these facts, the District previously represented that the Removed Books were available to Plaintiffs, and only Plaintiffs,” she wrote in an April 3 order. “No mention was made of the destruction of the Removed Books.”
In December, the parents of two district students, the local NAACP chapter and The Authors Guild — representing authors of the removed books — sued the district alleging a violation of the First Amendment and its counterpart provision of the Colorado Constitution. The district made a total of 19 books unavailable in schools, with parents noting their objections to “evil trans ideology” offensive content “for most religious people” and the “depravity of Islam,” among other themes.