Texas: “Librarian’s Wrongful Termination Lawsuit Against Llano County Can Move Forward, Judge Rules”

From the Austin American-Statesman:

A librarian who was fired amid a pressure campaign to remove books from Llano County public libraries can sue for wrongful termination and employment discrimination, a federal judge has ruled.

Suzette Baker, who was head librarian at a county library in Kingsland, filed the lawsuit in March and accused Llano County of firing her in 2022 because she refused to remove books that a group of activists deemed inappropriate for children, some of which focused on race and LGBTQ+ experiences. The county eventually removed 17 books, ranging from the children’s book “I Broke My Butt!” to the nonfiction book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent.”

Baker also accused county officials of suppressing her First Amendment rights by barring her and other librarians from attending public Library Advisory Board meetings during their personal and vacation time.

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U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman on Tuesday evening denied Llano County’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, allowing the case to advance toward a potential trial in Austin. The litigation could prove costly for Llano County, a rural Texas community in the Hill Country about 80 miles northwest of Austin, as it simultaneously defends itself against another federal lawsuit over the book removals.

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From KXAN (Austin):

After Baker was let go in March 2022 for not removing those books, she told KXAN’s Nabil Ramadna she was given a warning to remove books by her boss, but she did not comply.

“The books in my library in Kingsland were not taken off the shelves, we did not move them, I told my boss that was censorship,” Baker said back in 2022.

Baker also claimed her boss began “weeding” books from the circulation of the library. The lawsuit describes “weeding” as removing books that “have not been checked out in five years, are outdated, or are in poor condition.”

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Filed under: Libraries, News, Public Libraries