BEL AIR, Maryland — A Harford County Circuit Court judge ruled on Thursday afternoon that the graphic novel 'Flamer' can remain in public school libraries, siding with the Maryland State Board of Education in the first court test of the state's Freedom to Read Act.

Source: The Baltimore Banner

Judge Yolanda L. Curtin said the Harford County board of education's June 2025 decision to remove the book violated Maryland's Freedom to Read Act and the First Amendment. 'This court finds that the decision by the state board was not arbitrary, unreasonable or illegal,' she said, according to the Banner's reporting of the hearing.

5-3Harford board's June 2025 vote to remove the book
2024Year Maryland enacted the Freedom to Read Act
Nov 2024When a parent first asked for the book's removal

The dispute began in November 2024, when a parent formally asked Harford schools to remove 'Flamer', Mike Curato's semi-autobiographical graphic novel about a Filipino American teenager at a Boy Scout camp the summer before high school, arguing it did not meet the community's values. A review committee of parents, students and employees read the book and voted to keep it in middle and high school libraries, and the superintendent agreed — but in a private meeting in June 2025, board members voted 5-3 to remove it, citing age-appropriateness.

The Maryland State Board of Education then stepped in — the first time the state has intervened in a local decision about what students may read — and reversed the removal in November 2025. The Harford board challenged that reversal in court, leading to Thursday's ruling, the ACLU of Maryland said.

Source: ACLU of Maryland

Maryland's Freedom to Read Act, enacted in 2024, says school libraries must not exclude books because of an author's background or because of partisan, ideological or religious disapproval, and it requires local systems to run a review process for challenged books. The ACLU of Maryland said the local committee had recommended unanimously to retain the book, while the board removed it without reading it or giving a reasoned explanation — the contrast the state board and the judge relied on.

'The court's ruling is a victory for the freedom to read,' said Sonia Kumar, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Maryland. PEN America also welcomed the decision, saying the district review committee, which read the book as a whole, had voted unanimously to keep it before the school board overruled it.

Source: PEN America

Critics of the book have objected to its graphic language and vulgarity, and the parent who challenged it argued it could affect children who are finding themselves or facing mental health challenges. With Thursday's ruling, the book stays eligible to remain on middle and high school shelves in Harford County.