NBC News: “Inside The Two-Year Fight to Bring Charges Against School Librarians in Granbury, Texas”
From NBC News and KXAS:
The law enforcement officer spent months methodically gathering evidence. He leafed through thousands of pages and highlighted key passages amid reams and reams of paper. He wore his body camera to record his interactions with witnesses and suspects. And he photographed what he saw as instruments of the alleged crime:
Books.
The targets of the investigation? Three school librarians in Granbury, Texas. The allegation? They had allowed children to access literature β such as βThe Bluest Eye,β by Toni Morrison β that the officer, Scott London, a chief deputy constable, had deemed obscene.
In an extraordinary look into the ramifications of the right-wing backlash against books dealing with racism, gender, sex and sexuality, an 824-page investigative file obtained by NBC News and NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth shows how, for two years, London vigorously pursued felony charges against librarians in the Granbury Independent School District.
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About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.