A Librarian Who Refused To Ban Books Wins $700,000 Settlement
“I will never regret standing up for the First Amendment," she said.
How about a little good news?
A Wyoming librarian has been awarded a $700,000 settlement after she was fired for refusing to take LGBTQ books off the shelves in Campbell County. It’s a win for banned books, the First Amendment, LGBTQ supporters, and libraries.
In 2023, Terri Lesley was fired from her job of library system director in Campbell County, Wyoming, after 27 years on the job. While those who fired her said it was for performance issues, the decision came amid a battle over LGBTQ library books that some wanted banned from the library system. Lesley stood her ground and was terminated the day after refusing to physically take the books off the shelves.
Last spring, she sued the county, the commission, and the library board for violating her First Amendment rights — and this week, a federal judge sided with her.
"I do feel vindicated. It's been a rough road, but I will never regret standing up for the First Amendment," Lesley told Wyoming Public Radio.
Lesley said that removing the books was censorship and discrimination, which would have opened the county up to lawsuits.
"We hope at least that it sends a message to other library districts, other states, other counties, that the First Amendment is alive and strong and that our values against discrimination also remain alive and strong," said Lesley's attorney, Iris Halpern. "These are public entities, they're government officials, they need to keep in mind their constitutional obligations."
Halpern and her firm, Rathod Mohamedbhai in Denver, have a history of doing legal work for fired librarians in our current era of book banning. Of course, book banning efforts have reached a record high over the past 4 years.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Deborah Caldwell-Stone, ALA’s Director of Office for Intellectual Freedom, told the Associated Press. “The last two years have been exhausting, frightening, outrage inducing.”
Here’s Scary Mommy’s guide to fighting book ban in your community.
