Federal appeals court orders temporary hold on returning of banned books to Colorado school district

A federal appeals court has ordered a temporary hold on a previous federal judge's order for a Colorado school district to put books back on shelves after the district banned several books from its schools.

The 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals halted the return of those books in an order issued Friday morning. That delay is only temporary, however, as the court wants the Elizabeth School District to respond to questions from the court. The 10th Circuit Court gave the school district until the end of the day on Monday, April 14 to reply.

"To facilitate the court's consideration of the motion and ordered response, we enter a temporary stay of the district court's March 19 order (as revised by its order dated April 3)," the court said in its Friday ruling. "This temporary stay of the district court order is only to the extent the order requires appellant to reshelve the removed books by April 5, 2025. The temporary stay is in effect until further order of this court."

Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney of the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado previously ordered the district to put all copies of the 19 books back into schools, but the school district appealed that ruling.

"Elizabeth School District has been granted an administrative stay from the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. We do not have to put the books back by Saturday as previously ordered by the Denver judge," a school district spokesman told CBS News Colorado on Friday.

It's unclear how long the appeals process could take, but both the plaintiffs -- two school district parents, the Author's Guild, and the NAACP of Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming -- and the school district could be required to respond to several rounds of questions or requests for clarifications before the appeals court makes a final ruling. At that point, the case could then be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which would need to agree to hear the case.

The books in question include:

1. "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas
2. "Beloved" by Toni Morrison
3. "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison
4. "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini  
5. "You Should See Me in a Crown" by Leah Johnson 
6. "#Pride: Championing LGBTQ Rights" by Rebecca Felix 
7. "George" (now published and referred to as "Melissa") by Alex Gino 
8. "It's Your World—If You Don't Like It, Change It" by Mikki Halpin
9. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky 
10. "Thirteen Reasons Why" by Jay Asher 
11. "Looking for Alaska" by John Green 
12. "Nineteen Minutes" by Jodi Picoult 
13. "Crank" by Ellen Hopkins 
14. "Glass" by Ellen Hopkins 
15. "Fallout" by Ellen Hopkins
16. "Identical" by Ellen Hopkins 
17. "Burned" by Ellen Hopkins 
18. "Smoke" by Ellen Hopkins
19. "Redwood and Ponytail" by K.A. Holt