United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit

____________FILED June 6, 2024 No. 23-50224 Lyle W. Cayce ____________ Clerk Leila Green Little; Jeanne Puryear; Kathy Kennedy; Rebecca Jones; Richard Day; Cynthia Waring; Diane Moster,

Plaintiffs—Appellees,

versus Llano County; Ron Cunningham, in his official capacity as Llano County Judge; Jerry Don Moss, in his official capacity as Llano County Commissioner; Peter Jones, in his official capacity as Llano County Commissioner; Mike Sandoval, in his official capacity as Llano County Commissioner; Linda Raschke, in her official capacity as Llano County Commissioner; Amber Milum, in her official capacity as Llano County Library System Director; Bonnie Wallace, in her official capacity as Llano County Library Board Member; Rochelle Wells, in her official capacity as Llano County Library Board Member; Rhoda Schneider, in her official capacity as Llano County Library Board Member; Gay Baskin, in her official capacity as Llano County Library Board Member,

Defendants—Appellants. ______________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas USDC No. 1:22-CV-424 ______________________________ Before Wiener, Southwick, and Duncan, Circuit Judges. Case: 23-50224 Document: 164-1 Page: 2 Date Filed: 06/06/2024

No. 23-50224

Jacques L. Wiener, Jr., Circuit Judge: The dirtiest book in all the world is the expurgated book. 1 Plaintiffs-Appellees, seven patrons of the Llano County library system (“Plaintiffs”), brought this suit against Defendants-Appellants Llano County, the members of the County’s Commissioners Court, the County’s library system director, and the library board (collectively, “Defendants”). Plaintiffs claim that Defendants violated their First Amendment right to access information and ideas by removing seventeen books based on their contents and messages. The district court granted Plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction, requiring Defendants to return “all print books that were removed because of their viewpoint or content” and enjoining Defendants from “removing any books . . . for any reason during the pendency of this action.” Defendants appeal. For the reasons to follow, we MODIFY the language of the injunction to ensure its proper scope, but otherwise AFFIRM. I. Facts Libraries must continuously review their collection to ensure that it is up to date and to make room for new acquisitions. Like many libraries, the Llano County library system uses the “Continuous Review, Evaluation and Weeding” (“CREW”) process. This is a standardized method of evaluating a library’s collection and removing outdated or duplicated materials (also known as “weeding”), according to objective, neutral criteria. Llano County applies the “MUSTIE” factors in weeding books, as recommended by experts in the field, under which a book is evaluated for whether it is (1) “Misleading and/or factually inaccurate,” (2) “Ugly (worn out beyond _____________________ 1 Walt Whitman (1888), in Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden 124 (1906).

2 Case: 23-50224 Document: 164-1 Page: 3 Date Filed: 06/06/2024

No. 23-50224

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