It’s in the books: The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District has agreed to settle with the ACLU and the Northern Justice Project over a frivolous lawsuit concerning possibly indecent books on the shelves in borough school libraries.
But the district didn’t settle without having its say in the matter, and expressing its distaste for the law fare being committed. The ACLU and Northern Justice Project’s demand for money in exchange for dropping the case reveals the strategy the groups are using to take money from taxpayers, the district said.
“This tactic of filing a case, garnering headlines, and then seeking attorney’s fees from the very organization you sued is problematic for the Board and the District. The School Board and the District firmly believe no errors were made and the judge’s order in August seems to support this belief,” the district wrote.
“We also believe a trial on the merits would establish that the Library Advisory Committee thoughtfully and carefully reviewed each title. However, the ACLU and the Northern Justice Project knows it will cost the District far more to take the case all the way through trial. Unfortunately, this tactic works,” the district continued. The School Board and the District have a duty to prioritize the funds they receive on educating children, and not defending themselves against lawsuits.
Thus, the district will pay the Northern Justice Project and the ACLU $89,000 to end litigation “that would have cost much more than that to defend through trial.”
“In exchange for money paid to The Northern Justice Project and the ACLU, the parties have agreed to forgo further litigation and leave in place the final decisions made by the library advisory committee, the School Board, and the Administration, the district wrote.
The ransom paid by the district to the groups ends the hostage taking … for now. For groups that grift, there’s always another way to extract money from the public.
The case started in 2023, when the school district responded to concerns brought by parents and the community about lascivious books that librarians were pushing on children in the school libraries. To address the concerns, the School Board and the administration established a process to review whether certain titles could be considered criminally indecent under Alaska law.
The School Board and the administration commissioned a Library Citizen Advisory Committee to review the 56 books that had been challenged. The 11-member Committee was not under the control of any person or the School Board.
From August 2023 to June 2024, the Committee met once a month to discuss the books each member read the prior month.
During the meetings, the committee discussed each book and made recommendations to the School Board on two questions: (1) whether a book was obscene; and (2) if not, what grade levels should have access to the book.
The District publicly noticed each meeting, and all meetings were broadcast live on a local radio station. Voting results were made public on the District’s website. The Committee unanimously recommended to the Board that seven titles be permanently removed from circulation because they met the standards for criminal obscenity.
That’s when the ACLU and the Northern Justice Project, whose attorney Savannah Fletcher is now running for Senate for Fairbanks, jumped into action, filing a lawsuit that claimed the District’s review process violated the First Amendment of the Constitution.
Notwithstanding the discovery of obscene material, in January 2024, the ACLU and Northern Justice Project sought to stop the work of the Committee, at one point referring to the process as a sham.
Despite the litigation, the committee completed their book reviews in July 2024.
Ultimately, the Administration—at the final direction of the School Board—removed seven books from circulation and ensured that other books were shelved at the age-appropriate libraries.
By July of 2024 the Administration had already begun reshelving the books not found to be criminally indecent; a process that was completed before school began.
In an August 2024 order, the Federal District Court instructed the School District to complete its review of any outstanding books and confirm that the district had reshelved works that were not deemed to be criminally indecent in nature by the Library Citizen Advisory Committee. The
The district was easily able to comply with this order because that was, in fact, what had already been done with the exception of a few titles.
The judge, Sharon Gleason, did not mention anything at all about the seven books that had been found to be criminally indecent and only asked that the District confirm that the other books had been reshelved. Gleason’s decision has created federal control over school libraries, overstepping local control.
Perhaps recognizing they could not show the School Board members, the Administration, or Library Advisory Committee held impure and unconstitutional motives, the Northern Justice Project and the ACLU approached the District asking to settle the case outside of court.
“The District believes the plaintiffs filed a case, recognized that they would not prevail, and then asked to recoup attorney’s fees from the MSBSD instead of pursuing their case,” the district said. “We ask the public to visit https://www.matsuk12.us/librarycommittee to explore in greater detail the great work of the 2023-2024 library advisory committee. The Board and the District are glad to have this distraction of a lawsuit behind us and are grateful to the members of the Library Advisory Committee for their work in making libraries safer for students.”
Meanwhile, the ACLU and Northern Justice Project were able to pay their rent and heating bills for another year — compliments of the taxpayers.
