The ACLU is fighting Rutherford County’s book bans. Here’s why.

Books touching on sexuality and race are being pulled off the shelves in Tennessee, and Rutherford County is at the heart of the controversy.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee is suing to keep those books in the county’s school libraries. The nonprofit has chosen Rutherford as its proving ground because of community support and strong public record. 

Dozens gathered in the Patterson Park Community Center in Murfreesboro on Thursday to join the discussion about the lawsuit that challenges the Rutherford County Board of Education’s decision to restrict and ban more than 145 books in school libraries. The ACLU is arguing that these book bans violate the First Amendment. 

The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of three Rutherford County families and PEN America — a national writers and free expression organization. The families include two rising freshmen and one rising senior who will attend Rutherford County schools next year.

First Amendment violations

Stella Yarbrough, the legal director of the ACLU of Tennessee, explained that the First Amendment not only protects one’s right to free speech but also the ability to receive information.

“When you do provide a library, one of the things that the First Amendment is clear about that you cannot do is remove books because you just don’t like their content,” she said.

The banned books address LGBTQ rights, race and racism. A few examples include Beloved by Toni Morrison and The Testaments –the sequel to the popular book turned television show, The Handmaid’s Tales.

The ACLU found that the banned books were very popular among students — with some having been checked out thousands of times, according to library records.

Community Support and Public Record

Yarbrough noted that book bans are happening all across Tennessee.

She credited the Rutherford County Library Alliance for alerting the ACLU about the book bans and thanked students for their willingness to speak out. That community support, Yarbrough stressed, is critical not only at the beginning of a lawsuit but even after a case is won to ensure that things actually change.

“You have to have people willing to watch every move and make sure that everything’s being complied with and so you really need buy-in from the people who are affected by the lawsuit,” Yarbrough said.

The strong public record about why the books were banned also made Rutherford County an ideal location to file the lawsuit, according to Yarbrough.

“We had the school board members stating publicly things like, ‘I don’t like these books, I won’t read them.’” she said. “One of the board members described their process as a round-robin game of insanity.”

According to an ACLU press release, the Rutherford County school board began books in the 2024 at the request of school board members. This was done without any public meeting or vote. The release further stated that the school board members relied almost exclusively on a rating system created by people associated with the conservative group, Moms for Liberty.

The ACLU of Tennessee is asking that the school board put back any books that it removed and stop banning books.

Yarbrough provided the crowd with updates in the developments of the lawsuit — noting that they recently filed a motion for a preliminary injunction. She explained that this is a request for the judge to intervene at the beginning of the case because their plaintiffs — the students and authors — will otherwise be irreparably harmed.