First Amendment litigation involving book censorship in schools has usually turned on the rights of a school board to control classroom curricula by prohibiting the use of certain texts, and an inquiry into whether a certain challenged text is vulgar. Some federal courts have distinguished between objective vulgarity—which a school board may prohibit—and the subject matter of a book (witchcraft, lesbian romance) with which the school board members may personally disagree or have a distaste for—and which a school board may not prohibit.

But one federal court recently stated that book banning takes place when a government or its officials forbid or prohibit others from having a book. The term does not apply where a school district—through its authorized school board—decides not to continue possessing the book on its own library shelves. The school board is the entity that has the ultimate authority to decide what books will be purchased and kept on the shelves of the schools in the district—and the school board can decide not to purchase and shelve a book in the first place.

In Kentucky, as in other states, First Amendment litigation related to book censorship in schools often revolves around the balance between a school board's authority to determine educational materials and the protection of free speech and academic freedom. Federal law, including First Amendment jurisprudence, generally allows school boards to control classroom curricula and remove texts they find objectively vulgar. However, federal courts have indicated that school boards cannot prohibit books based on subjective disagreement with the book's subject matter, such as themes of witchcraft or LGBTQ+ relationships, unless they can demonstrate that the material is educationally unsuitable or vulgar. A recent federal court ruling clarified that a school board's decision not to purchase or to remove a book from its library does not constitute 'book banning' in the traditional sense, as the school board has the discretion to determine its library's inventory. This distinction is important in understanding the legal framework within which Kentucky school boards operate when making decisions about school library content.