School accused of 'purging' Christian books | Fox News

Starnes may be at it again, waiting on more information to become available. Whether legally right or wrong, I do not believe in the banning of any book.

“We do not purchase sectarian educational materials and do not allow sectarian materials on our state-authorized lending shelves,” Superintendent Kathleen Hermsmeyer wrote in a letter to attorneys at the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI).

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Pacific Justice Institute is representing a parent who discovered what they called a “Christian purging” of the charter school’s library.

“She was told by one of the library attendants that the library has been instructed to remove all books with a Christian message, authored by Christians, or published by a Christian publishing company,” read a letter PJI sent to the public charter school. “The attendant advised that the library would no longer be carrying those books. Indeed, our client was told that the library was giving those books away, and she actually took some.”

Among the books deemed inappropriate, the PJI said, was “The Hiding Place” the biography of Corrie ten Boom, a Dutch Christian who was imprisoned by the Germans for helping Jews escape the Holocaust.

Odd that they choose this book to highlight as I met Ten Boom in 86 or 87 when she was doing a book tour for Tramp for the Lord.  There was a screening of "The Hiding Place" prior to her "talk" (she had recently had a stroke so another individual spoke in her place).  Through high-school and college I did numerous book reports and a speech on the inspiration gained for her "testimony." Oh the memories,,,

“It is alarming that a school library would attempt to purge books from religious authors,” said Brad Dacus, president of the religious advocacy group. “This is a major sweep by this charter school to eliminate the religious viewpoint. Libraries cannot engage in an open purging of books simply because they are of a Christian perspective.”

Dacus said the charter school must reverse “their ill-conceived and illegal book-banning policy.” If they fail to do so, he said, PJI is prepared to take further legal action.

And there is a first for everything, Starnes actually cited case law.  To bad the case isn't actually there which is odd since the last update occurred at 9:01AM today,

Pacific Justice Institute said the charter school has violated the First Amendment. They cited a 1982 Supreme Court ruling that said “local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to ‘prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.’” If you’d like to read the entire case – it’s “Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico.”

Here is the actual case if interested.

School accused of 'purging' Christian books | Fox News