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 New Hampshire, as in other states, First Amendment litigation related to book censorship in schools often hinges on the balance between a school board's authority to determine educational materials and the protection against government-imposed censorship. Federal courts have generally recognized that school boards have the discretion to control classroom curricula and remove books they find objectively vulgar. However, courts have also indicated that school boards cannot remove books simply because they subjectively disagree with the content, such as themes of witchcraft or LGBTQ+ relationships. A recent federal court ruling clarified that 'book banning' refers to the act of prohibiting access to a book. This term does not extend to a school board's decision not to purchase or to remove a book from a school's library based on its discretion. The school board has the ultimate authority to decide which books to acquire and retain in the district's libraries, provided that the decisions are not based on unconstitutional grounds.