In an attempt to allow community members to have a say in what does or does not belong in the public library, the city council of Wichita Falls, TX adopted a controversial resolution. Known as the Altman Resolution, the law stipulated that if 300 library card holders signed a petition requesting that a particular book be removed from the collection, the library had 24 hours upon submission of the petition to remove the offending literature.

In 2000, a petition was submitted requesting the immediate removal of two books whose subjects were families with homosexual parents: Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman and Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite. A group of outraged library patrons quickly filed suit against the action because they felt it abridged their First Amendment rights for them and their children to access the books freely.

Did the city council violate library patrons’ First Amendment rights by allowing the controversial books to be removed by petitioning groups?