A federal judge just dismissed an Ohio teacher’s fight against book bans.

In (more) bad civil rights news, an Ohio third grade teacher lost a battle with the state last week when a district court dismissed her book ban lawsuit.

Karen Cahall, who’s taught in the New Richmond Exempted Village School District for 30 years, was suspended without pay for several days last fall when school authorities accused her of storing controversial materials in her classroom library. The materials in question? Four YA books “with LGBTQ+ characters.”

Last December, Cahall sued the district for her suspension on the grounds that her employer’s definition of “controversial” had been left deliberately vague. Citing the 14th and 15th amendments, she chided the state for big equal protection biffs. Though conservative Ohio courts always conspired to tilt her battle uphill, the initial suit made a splash. But on September 29, U.S. District Judge Douglas Cole ruled in favor of the system and dismissed Cahall’s case.

Judge Cole is a first term Trump appointee, nominated in 2019. In his ruling, he echoed the district’s definition of controversial—as “likely to arouse both support and opposition in the community.”

He also cited a precedent that limits a teacher’s civil rights. “Teachers do not have a First Amendment right to make their own ‘curricular and pedagogical choices’ in a public school,” he wrote. “The district pays her to instruct students, and as part of that, it has the right to specify the materials that she uses to accomplish that objective.”

Though the “controversial” books in Ms. Cahall’s classroom collection lived among more than 100 others—and, as her suit critically argued, none of the titles were “required reading or used in formal instruction”—the district court ruling will stand. Which makes this yet another blow for civil rights in the classroom, and queer children’s literature, writ-large.

Cahall’s initial suspension was set in motion off a parent’s complaint. But she’s defended her role in the classroom through every turn of the legal process, noting “sincerely held moral and religious beliefs that all children, including children who are LGBTQ+ or the children of parents who are LGBTQ+, deserve to be respected, accepted, and loved for who they are.”

Her ongoing suit has been supported in part by a personal GoFundMe, with surplus proceeds earmarked for LGBTQ+ advocacy efforts. And though the legal process has been a huge ordeal, Cahall’s nowhere near giving up the good fight. As she told The Buckeye Flame, “the good thing is when I’m in my classroom and I’m teaching, that really is my happy place.”

If you too love controversy and morally courageous educators, consider picking up one of the books excised from Cahall’s contested collection: A.J. Sass’ Ana On The Edge, Basil Sylvestor’s The Fabulous Zed Watson, Ashley Herring Blake’s Hazel Bly and the Deep Blue Sea, and Kyle Lukoff’s Too Bright to See.