South Carolina libraries, both school and public, have been under attack as long and as severely as in other states. The state is one of three with mechanisms to ban books statewide in schools, and it’s demanded the removal of 21 books from all public school libraries. Once the largest list of state-sanctioned book bans, they’ve been surpassed by Utah this year, and it’s quite likely that part of South Carolina’s quieting of such bans is directly related to a lawsuit brought forth by students and librarians last fall.
Public libraries are under pressure from the state regarding their collections as well. State law requires public libraries to certify with the State Library that they do not have books that “appeal to the prurient interests of children” before they receive their annual state funding. This has opened up vast opportunities for book-banning advocates to pursue their agenda in local public libraries. For South Carolina libraries in particular, this has included reinterpretation of the “young adult” literature category; libraries statewide have ravaged their YA collections, operating under the factually inaccurate, partisan belief that this category is not for teen readers but for adult readers. Libraries like those in North Myrtle Beach have completely dismantled their YA sections, putting those books either in juvenile collections–that is, for readers younger than teenagers–or in adult collections–that is, for readers older than teenagers. This has effectively eliminated teen-specific collections not just there, but in several other libraries in South Carolina.
Other tactics taken in South Carolina libraries to “meet compliance” with state law? Outright banning of “gender identity” books for any readers under the age of 18. That’s the current state of affairs in York County, which has moved picture books into the adult collection per board demands, and it’s also why Greenville’s removal of all books with trans themes or characters from youth areas led to a lawsuit against the county.
All of this is context for a significant new lawsuit filed this week in Pickens County. Stephanie Howard, former director of the Pickens County Public Library, has sued over her wrongful termination earlier this year, and the 60-page filing is a chilling read.
For years, Pickens County Public Library has made headlines similar to those of others both in and beyond the state. The board wanted more control over which books were in the collection, directed in part by local “parental rights” and partisan interest groups.
But earlier this year, things took an even starker turn when the board, including new members recruited by the outspoken conservative voices already on it, implemented new policies over the collection. The board demanded that the library review all 86,000-some items in their youth collections. Why? To “move inappropriate content out of children’s and young adult sections and comply with state law,” per the board. It was yet another example of the library board showing off their power over the library, its staff, and the community more broadly, something they’ve become accustomed to.
Such an onerous task for a small library–Pickens County itself has an estimated population of just over 130,000–would require the library to change its current roster of programs and plans to get the work done. This was what director Howard told them, and when the board forced the review, she and her staff had to cancel their youth programming to complete it.
It took little time between those announcements and the board’s decision to fire Howard. Upon firing the director, the board announced they were pausing the review of materials and returning the library’s programming plans. They planned to restart the review later that same month, with no actual roadmap for how they’d do it. It was more important at that moment to approve a new library director whose values and beliefs aligned with the board’s far-right agenda.
On-the-ground advocates in Pickens have been working hard to support their library from the start. This has included not just showing up and speaking out at library board meetings. Advocates coordinated a viewing of the Emmy Award-winning documentary The Librarians. It drew a large crowd.
Howard’s lawsuit outlines the efforts by which local partisan groups and members of her own library board worked to make her job as director impossible–something impressive, given the already-impossible standards by which the state has demanded oversight of public libraries in the last several years.
The lawsuit names five defendants, including a local conservative activist who runs the “No Porn in Pickens” Facebook page; an advocacy group called Conservatives of the Upstate; five individual library board members; the library board itself; and Pickens County. Among the issues raised in the lawsuit are state Freedom of Information Act violations; deliberate interference by the named defendants in Howard’s ability to do the job she was hired to do effectively (she had had no job performance concerns raised in the several years she served in the role before this targeted attack on the library); defamation; civil conspiracy, and emotional distress both during and following her firing.
Read the entire filing to see just the kinds of activities these county “leaders” were up to in their efforts to create a public library in their image and vision, aligned with the far right’s demands for erasure and silencing of entire groups of people.
The precedent in cases like Howard’s is hopeful. Every librarian who has sued for wrongful termination in the last several years has settled their case out of court. Much of the evidence presented in Howard’s filing is reminiscent of librarian Amanda Jones’s lawsuits, in which she was owed a public apology and one dollar from Facebook page owner Ryan Thames and over $50,000 from a local conservative group leader.
It’s hard not to read Howard’s filing and not see the playbook by which she endured relentless targeted harassment.
Lawsuits like this won’t get Howard her job back. But lawsuits like this are crucial to remind people that public libraries belong to their entire communities and that those hired to lead those institutions are and should be trained, educated professionals.