Authors

• Tessa K. Wild, William & Mary Law School

Too Cruel for School: How Parental Rights Doctrine Can Help Protect Against Book Bans

Abstract

This Note argues that parents’ rights protections are crucial to protecting against broad censorship in public schools, and that if states want to effectively regulate book removals, they should preemptively adopt laws similar to Minnesota’s section 134.51.

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Part I of this Note will provide background information about book removals as a freedom of speech issue, as well as a history of how parents’ rights rhetoric is tied to book-removal issues. Part II will address both the history and legal standards of parents’ rights protections. Finally, Part III, using Minnesota and Utah as case studies, will apply parents’ rights law to current legislation, and will propose that while Utah’s approach to book removals fails under the applicable legal standard, Minnesota’s succeeds. Ultimately, Part III will argue that to adequately protect parents’ rights in education, states should preemptively adopt laws similar to Minnesota’s section 134.51. Part III will also address potential challenges to this proposal.

This abstract has been taken from the author's introduction.

Repository Citation

Tessa K. Wild, Too Cruel for School: How Parental Rights Doctrine Can Help Protect Against Book Bans, 67 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1823 (2026), https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol67/iss6/6