How are Book Bans Constitutional?

/home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 135 points –

I know Florida, Texas, and other counties have tried and succeeded to ban books, I wonder how that is even legal since we have the first amendment. I tried doing research on this since Huntington Beach is banning books and people were petitioning against that at the main library.

I made a little post asking people to petition on the Orange County sub.

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Most of these bans are not about banning those books in general, they are about not making them available in schools or public libraries. The government can decide what to promote in its own institutions. People can still get those books from elsewhere: they can buy them online or in physical bookstores.

Isn't that kind of the problem, though? A private organization can certainly censor themselves as they see fit, but the US government should not, no?

There's a limited amount of space for books in schools and public libraries, so they have to make some decisions what to have in them and what not.

Also I think this is mostly being done by state governments, not the US (federal) government.