Global Courant 2023-04-14 04:42:40
LLANO, Texas — A library system in a small Texas town threatened with extinction was spared Thursday after Llano County commissioners said they would abide by a federal judge’s order to reinstate the books they banned in instead of closing the system.
Llano County Judge Ron Cunningham, who heads the county commission, made the announcement after county leaders heard more than a dozen residents at an emergency meeting.
“The library will remain open while we try this in court, rather than through the news media,” said Cunningham, who said the county has already spent more than $100,000 in legal fees and vowed to appeal the decision. federal judge.
Loud cheers could be heard outside the district building as jubilant opponents of the closing of the libraries celebrated.
“That’s a victory,” said Rev. Kevin Henderson of Sunrise Beach Federated Church. “That’s a victory for freedom of speech!”
A disappointed Eva Carter disagreed. She said she was on the side of those who wanted to close the libraries and predicted that the federal judge’s ruling would be overturned on appeal.
“We need to challenge it in the legal system and get this salacious material removed,” Carter, 82, said. “We have God on our side and we expect him to take credit when this is said and done.”
Before the deputies made their decision, the residents were each given two minutes to weigh in in an emergency meeting. And some of the first to speak denounced the commissioners for threatening the age-old system that, they said, had long been a vital part of the community and a haven for students seeking to do schoolwork and research.
They also dismissed claims that some in the community claimed that the targeted books are pornographic as nonsense.
“These books are not pornographic,” librarian Suzette Baker, who works at the Kingsland branch of the system, told commissioners.
Jeff Scoggins stopped livestreaming the meeting to warn commissioners that they will hear from voters if they bow to a “minority” pushing for the libraries to be closed.
It will be a black eye for Llano County, and “this could be knock-on” for other Texas counties where local libraries have been targeted by small but vocal groups of conservative critics, Scoggins warned.
The pro-library speakers were followed by a contingent of residents who support efforts to ban certain books and who used their two minutes to read out of context excerpts from the targeted books.
Llano resident Rhonda Schneider read passages from the book “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl”, a novel by Jesse Andrews that does not appear to be on the list of banned books, but is some parents have criticized for including some sexual language.
“It’s not a safe space for kids,” Schneider said of the library. “I’m for closing the library until we get these books off the shelves.”
The commissioners allowed testimony from just a dozen residents before heading to the board meeting, which is held behind closed doors, as library opponents began to pray aloud and chant “Amazing Grace.”
But there were signs that the commissioners, stung by the federal judge’s ruling that they had violated the constitution by ripping a dozen mostly children’s books off the shelves, were closing all three branches of a library system that has served several generations of Llano residents. would mothball. for nearly a century.
“We’re really concerned that they might just close the libraries,” said Leila Green Little, one of seven people who successfully sued the county in federal court for banning the books.
“Our library system was started over 100 years ago by a group of women from Llano County who met at our river to read books,” Little added. “That was the humble beginning of our library system. And if they shut it down, it would absolutely be the end of an important piece of our county’s history.”
When the commissioners called the special meeting, the first item on the agenda was whether the library should continue or cease operations.
As part of the discovery for the lawsuit they filed against the county on April 25, 2022, Little and the other book ban opponents discovered a text message that Bonnie Wallace, who is vice chair of the Llano County Library Advisory Board and an ally of the Commissioners, sent to one of their supporters.
It read in part “the judge has said if we lose the injunction he will CLOSE the library because he will NOT put the porn back in the children’s section!”
The judge Wallace was referring to is Cunningham. Neither Wallace nor Cunningham called back about the text message before the meeting.
Wallace also did not clarify in her text which books she or Cunningham consider “porn.”
The book ban issue drove a wedge through this mostly rural county 75 miles west of Austin.
Little and the other opponents of the book ban urged other Llano County residents to attend the special rally and show their support for the embattled library system, which serves the county’s 20,000 residents.
“In the night kitchen”, by Maurice Sendak; “Larry the Farting Leprechaun,” by Jane Bexley; and “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” by Isabel Wilkerson, are among the books Llano County officials have removed from the library. HarperCollins; Amazon digital services; Random house
Before the meeting got under way, residents who wanted to keep the library open complained that they were being denied the chance to address the commissioners in their room, known as the commissioners’ courtroom, which seats only 35 people.
Henderson, who favored keeping the libraries open, said he was turned down when he went to the town clerk on Wednesday to reserve a courtroom seat so he could address the commissioners.
Rev. Kevin Henderson of Sunrise Beach Federated Church says he is in favor of keeping the libraries open. He tried to get a chance to address the Llano County commissioners in their chambers, but was turned down.Suzanne Gamboa/NBC News
Arriving at the commissioners’ courtroom on Thursday morning, he encountered a group of people in favor of banning the books gathered in the shade of a tent set up outside for them and learned that they had been given speaking time.
“I don’t have a number to sit in court,” Henderson said.
Inside the tent, 39-year-old Jason Herron denied that they had received preferential treatment, saying they arrived not long after dawn to pray.
“We’re in favor of education, not propaganda,” says Herron, a father of three.
Lynsi Herron; her husband, Jason Herron; and Sara Virdell, 37, of Brady, Texas, wait outside the Llano County Law Enforcement Building.Suzanne Gamboa/NBC News
The Llano County emergency meeting was called after U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman ruled last week in favor of Little and six other residents who sued Cunningham, Wallace, the Llano County commissioners and the other library board members over the removal of the books.
The residents argued that their First Amendment right to freedom of speech, as well as their right to a fair trial under the 14th Amendment, had been violated because the books had been removed without notice or opportunity to appeal.
“Suspects claim to be on the hunt to eradicate ‘pornographic’ material,” the residents said in their complaint. “This is a pretext; none of the books targeted by the defendants are pornographic.”
The books Llano County officials have pulled from library shelves include critically acclaimed works for teens and older readers, such as Isabel Wilkerson’s “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents”; “They Called Themselves the KKK: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group,” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti; the graphic novel ‘Spinning’ by Tilly Walden; Maurice Sendak’s “In the Night Kitchen”; and Robie H. Harris’ “It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health.”
But four children’s picture books with ‘crazy themes and rhymes’ were also banned.
They were “Larry the Farting Leprechaun,” “Gary the Goose and His Gas on the Loose,” “Freddie the Farting Snowman,” and “Harvey the Heart Has Too Many Farts,” according to the indictment.
And three books from Dawn McMillan’s “I Need a New Butt!” series have been removed, it says.
Last year, a Mississippi elementary school deputy principal was fired after shouting “I Need a New Butt!” had read. to a second class. The reason? Because the book used words like “ass” and “fart” and featured cartoon images of a child’s buttocks.
Suzanne Gamboa reported from Llano and Corky Siemaszko from New York City.
