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 Jersey, 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 content and the protection against government-imposed censorship. Federal courts have generally recognized that school boards have the discretion to decide on classroom curricula and can exclude texts they find objectively vulgar. However, courts have also indicated that school boards cannot ban books based on their disagreement with the subject matter, such as themes of witchcraft or LGBTQ+ relationships, if these do not meet the criteria of vulgarity. A recent federal court ruling clarified that the term 'book banning' specifically refers to the act of forbidding access to a book. It does not encompass a school board's decision not to purchase or to remove a book from the school's library, as the school board has the authority to determine the collection of its libraries. This distinction is important in understanding the legal framework within which NJ school boards operate regarding book censorship.