Huntington Beach ordered to return moved library books, re-establish teen section
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An Orange County Superior Court judge has ordered the city of Huntington Beach to eliminate a youth-restricted section on the fourth floor of the Central Library and return all books that had been moved there pursuant to a City Council resolution to their original location.
Judge Lindsey Martinez ruled in favor of plaintiffs Alianza Translatinx and three Huntington Beach residents last month. The plaintiffs, which included two teenagers and former Huntington Beach librarian Erin Spivey, sued the city in February on the grounds that its library policies were violating the 2024 California Freedom to Read Act.
On Oct. 7, Martinez signed a writ of mandate constructed by Spivey and the ALCU of Southern California, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit.
The city must also remove all signage regarding restricted books, re-establish the teen section and stop requiring parental consent for minors to access library materials.
“There’s no way I’m looking at this as anything other than a complete defeat for the City Council and their crusade against the public library,” Spivey, a Huntington Beach resident, said in an interview.
The writ specifies that Huntington Beach must adhere to the Freedom to Read Act, which requires a written and publicly accessible development policy to be submitted to the State Librarian by Jan. 1. It also establishes legal protections for library employees who refuse to censor materials.
Attorneys representing Huntington Beach filed an objection to the approved writ of mandate on Monday, stating the city believes it is “overreaching and does not reflect the ruling of the court or its minute order.”
It also states that the city reserves the right to appeal.
Huntington Beach City Councilmember Gracey Van Der Mark proposed the library policy change in 2023. Three years earlier, under a challenge system the library previously had in place, she had succeeded in having the book “Gender Queer” moved from the young adult section to the adult section.
Van der Mark did not return a message seeking comment this week. But she did publicly speak about the ACLU lawsuit during the spring.
“If the state refuses to protect our children, we will do it ourselves,” Van Der Mark said in March, during a press conference held in response to the suit. “We will not stand by while modern public libraries become distribution centers for sexually explicit material, under the guise of inclusivity and education.”
“If you look at libraries historically, you see that these censorship movements typically go in about 20-year cycles,” Spivey said. “There hadn’t been any outrage about the library’s collections, and a system to challenge was in place and was being successfully used by the constituents, such as Gracey Van Der Mark. Until about 2022, when Moms For Liberty really raised their head and started challenging all of these books in school libraries and public libraries, this had been a non-issue.
“The library will always be a place where people can choose the books that best serve themselves. We don’t force people to read books they find don’t fit their family or their taste. We don’t force people to read books that they disagree with.”
Spivey used the example of including books from United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the collection, even if she didn’t like him or approve of his message.
“We have to provide all books for all people in the library,” she said.
Measure A, passed by a majority of Surf City voters in a June special election, eliminated a proposed community parent/guardian children’s book review board that had been approved by the City Council and adopted as an ordinance in 2023. It gives that authority for the selection and use of library materials in the hands of the city’s director of community and library services, Ashley (Wysocki) Theel.
