The Somerset County Board of Education released a statement on April 14, 2026:
The ACLU has decided to deceive the public by filing a bogus lawsuit and accused the Somerset County Board of Education of not producing MPIA requested documents under the law.
On August 11, 2025 ACLU requested hundreds of pages of documents in a letter to the Somerset Board of Education. The letter is filled with bizarre and bogus allegations as is their copy/paste Press Release today:
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that Somerset County selection of the Maryland State approved Curriculum is Censorship;
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that somehow the Maryland board cannot vote in an open session to rescind old dated policies as Somerset County did back in 2025 and now in 2026;
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that the local school board had no right to replace legal counsel ignoring a quarter century Maryland Supreme Court Precedent in re/Chesapeake Charters etc and the right of anyone in America to choose his or her own attorney. Oddly, ACLU never questioned other counties when they replaced the exact same legal counsel who previously also covered the Somerset County school board as if all other counties in Maryland can replace that attorney and somehow Somerset County cannot do so in the exact same manner.
As far as policy 500-19, the School board has provided the policy and open meetings debates have been ongoing and presently the Superintendent is working with the Library Specialists on proper sorting and selection of media materials. The only requirement of the Board members is to know what books they are supposed to be buying before the books are purchased – publicly and transparently: the Board wants the public to know titles and to hear the debates whether the book selection is educationally suitable and not pervasively vulgar in the most transparent and public manner. Every parent in Somerset County will know openly and transparently what books media specialists propose; why and how those books improve the ELA of students in Somerset County. This process is fully transparent and public.
Somerset County did not have an Executive Closed Session since 2025 and all board meetings in 2026 were live, public and transparent so to allege “rogue” actions by the board is nothing short of fantasy and bad faith.
AH YES, The ACLU wants to sue the school board of the poorest county in MD. That will really help improve those test scores!! It’s for the children, right?