New College of Florida 'Statement on the Removal of Books and Library Materials' is Not Credible by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

New College of Florida ‘Statement on the Removal of Books and Library Materials’ Is Not Credible

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

December 22, 2025

I cannot get the images of mass book removals out of my mind, nor can I reconcile them with the university’s official claim that these actions reflect routine library “weeding” (see the August 14, 2024 Statement on the Removal of Books and Library Materials). What is plainly observable on campus tells a different story. Entire sections of shelving now sit empty—an outcome that goes far beyond standard thinning or rotation of materials and exceeds what is typically associated with responsible collection maintenance.

Source: 

Steven Walker

 @swalker_7 on Twitter

According to the American Library Association (2018), responsible collection maintenance is a selective, policy-driven, and content-neutral process—one that does not result in the wholesale disappearance of subject areas or function as a proxy for censorship. In library science, weeding is understood as an incremental practice intended to refresh collections, not one that produces visible gaps across disciplines or coincides with the elimination of academic programs.

The timing, scale, and physical outcome of these removals therefore raise serious questions about the adequacy of the explanation offered. Regardless of the terminology used, the practical effect has been a substantial reduction in access to entire bodies of scholarship—an outcome that cannot reasonably be characterized as neutral or merely procedural. Framing such results as routine risks substituting administrative language for meaningful transparency and accountability, particularly when the materials removed are closely associated with fields that have recently been discontinued at New College.

Whatever the intent, the outcome is clear: access to established fields of scholarship has been materially diminished in ways that are neither incidental nor easily reversed. 

I don't ever see this happening at UT-Austin. I certainly hope I am correct.

Reference

American Library Association. (2018). Selection & reconsideration policy toolkit for public, school, & academic libraries. https://www.ala.org/tools/challengesupport/selectionpolicytoolkit/

Statement on the Removal of Books and Library Materials

Post Date and Author:
August 14, 2024 - by New College Communications
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The New College Library is following its longstanding annual procedures for weeding its collection, which involves the removal of materials that are old, damaged, or otherwise no longer serving the needs of the College. This process is carried out by professional Librarians trained to assess the collection. A library needs to regularly review and renew its collection to ensure its materials are meeting the current needs of students and faculty. The images seen online of a dumpster of library materials is related to the standard weeding process. Chapter 273 of Florida statutes precludes New College from selling, donating or transferring these materials, which were purchased with state funds. Deselected materials are discarded, through a recycling process when possible.

Separate from the New College library weeding its collection, a number of books associated with the discontinued Gender Studies program were removed from a room in Hamilton Center that is being repurposed. These books came from a number of sources, primarily donations over a number of years. Again, Gender Studies has been discontinued as an area of concentration at New College, and the books are not part of any official college collection or inventory. When the books were not claimed for pickup from the room, they were moved to a book drop location by the library where they were later claimed by individuals planning to donate the books locally.

“If George Washington’s, my father, why wasn’t he Chicano?" by Dr. Felipe de Ortego y Gasca

 Friends:

In memory of Dr. Felipe de Ortego y Gasca (1926–2018), pioneering scholar, writer, and founding voice of Chicano Studies. I first came to know and admire him in the late 1970s as a college student at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas. He moved with a quiet dignity, an air that seemed to carry history itself, and the respect he commanded flowed from his defining contributions to the birth of Chicana and Chicano Studies.

When Dr. Ortego first penned this essay in 2012, the attacks on Raza Studies (Mexican American/Chicana/o Studies) in Arizona were already alarming. Consider that this was pre-Trump America, before MAGA nationalism became a governing ideology. What we are reading here is the continuity of a conservative mindset that traffics in fear and promotes willful ignorance—one that has long sought to erase Mexican American history and silence Ethnic Studies. Do note the list of books he lists below of those that were banned by the Arizona Department of Education.

I testified in the precedent-setting Arizona court case, Arce v. Douglas (2017), which struck at the heart of Mexican American Studies. Though my book,Subtractive Schooling, was not formally on the list of banned titles, documents obtained through discovery made clear that it had been used as the very pretext to justify banning them all (scroll to the bottom to see the list).

The title of this piece comes from the last lines of a poem by Richard Olivas, who once asked in a history class: “If George Washington’s my father, why wasn’t he Chicano?” That question embodies the very reason for the emergence of Mexican American/Chicano Studies.

Until the Chicano Movement, Mexican Americans—treated as an internal colony of the United States—were taught little about their own history, contributions, and struggles. U.S. schools perpetuated a Eurocentric curriculum, indoctrinating students into myths of Manifest Destiny while erasing the histories of Indigenous, Black, Asian American, and Mexican American peoples.

As Ortego recounts, Mexican Americans have fought in every U.S. war, demonstrated their loyalty, and demanded their rightful place in the American mosaic. The Chicano Renaissance gave rise to a literature and scholarship that insisted: Mexican Americans are not who mainstream America says they are; only we can tell our own story.

In 2012, Arizona’s HB 2281 targeted Mexican American Studies in Tucson, banning classic works by Anzaldúa, Freire, Acuña, and even Shakespeare. Dr. Ortego correctly identified this as an expression of racism and fear: a refusal to allow students of color to see themselves reflected in history.

Now, looking back from the vantage point of 2025, we see that the attacks on knowledge, history, and identity have only intensified—book bans, anti-DEI legislation, and renewed efforts to silence Ethnic Studies. The struggle continues. And as Ortego insisted, so must we.

Book bans, as he recounts, are atrocious. Heartening is the thought that so many of these books are only a click away.

As Chicanas and Chicanos, as Mexicanas and Mexicanos, as Mexican Americans, we are—always and without question—on our land and in our homeland. This truth cannot be erased. It obligates us to defend Chicana/o Studies, and Ethnic Studies more broadly, because these fields are the repositories of our histories, our voices, and our dignity. Without them, we risk surrendering our story to those who would distort or erase it. That is a price far too exacting to pay.

We are always on our land. We have nowhere to go back to. Our ancestors roamed Turtle Island freely.

As I've always said, someday, these studies will simply be called, "a good and virtuous education." 

-Angela Valenzuela

 “If George Washington’s, my father, why wasn’t he Chicano?" 

by 

Dr. Felipe de Ortego y Gasca

Dr. Felipe de Ortego y Gasca

The title of this piece are the last lines of a poem by Richard Olivas penned some years ago. Sitting in his history class, Olivas asked: “If George Washington’s, my father, why wasn’t he Chicano? The question raised in the poem embodies the reason for the emergence of Mexican American/Chicano Studies.

Indeed, the White Studies curriculum of American schools indoctrinates students in American classrooms in the apodictive historical perspective of the nation—myths and all. Until the advent of the Chicano Movement Mexican Americans knew little about their history in the United States as a colonized people. 

Mexican America as an internal American colony

Blame it on Manifest Destiny! By hook or crook, the United States was determined to extend its domain from sea to shining sea. But Mexico was standing in the way. In 1846, President James K. Polk declared war on Mexico on the pretext that Mexico had invaded the United States by crossing into Brownsville, Texas, with armed troops. Only the year before, the United States had admitted Texas into the union even though Mexico had never acknowledged the break-away independence of its Texas province. Despite this international state of affairs with Texas, dead-set on adding Texas to the union, the United States annexed Texas in 1845. 

The U.S. War against Mexico lasted less than 2 years, after which per the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signed on February 2, 1848, the United States dismembered Mexico and annexed more than half of its territory, permitting Mexicans (by choice) to remain in the American acquired territory of Mexico or to relocate to the new boundaries of Mexico. My father’s family chose to relocate to Guanajuato, Mexico; while my mother’s family chose to remain in San Antonio, Texas, where they had settled in 1731, some 45 years before the break-away American colonies of England in 1776. Most Mexicans opted to stay with what they considered their homeland. 

As an internally colonized people, Mexicans—now Americans by fiat—had to learn English, how to navigate the American political system, and how to survive the American schools. I wrote about that survival in 1970 in a piece entitled “Montezuma’s Children,” published as a cover story by The Center Magazine of the John Maynard Hutchins Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. The piece was read into the Congressional Record by Senator Ralph Yarbrough of Texas in 1970 and was recommended for a Pulitzer. 

 

Mexican America comes of Age

For 162 years—from 1848 to 1960—Mexican Americans sought to become the citizens the United States expected them to be: They fought in every American war since then, distinguishing themselves in World War II as the only group to win more Medals of Honor than any other group. Of the 16 million Americans who served in that conflict, 1 million were Mexican Americans. When the United States called on Americans to defend the nation, Mexican Americans have responded overwhelmingly. 

Mexican American loyalty and allegiance to the American flag has not waned. What changed was Mexican American expectations of equality for their service to the nation. Those expectations surfaced in 1960 with the Chicano Movement—a groundswell of patriotism in search of recognition. Out of that groundswell emerged the Chicano Renaissance: a literary recognition of their evolution in the American mosaic. In the Fall of 1969 I taught the first course in Mexican American/ Chicano literature at the University of New Mexico. In 1971 I completed Backgrounds of Mexican American Literature(University of New Mexico, 1971), first historical and taxonomic study in the field. In 1960, only 10 novels by Mexican Americans had been published in the United States. Since then, the count has swelled to hundreds. Overall, the count of books by Mexican Americans in the American publishing arena is in the thousands. Mexican Americans realized that if America is to know who Mexican Americans are, then Mexican Americans must write their own stories. Mexican Americans are not who mainstream America says they are; Mexican Americans are the only ones who can say who they are. 

Today, the most egregious example of prejudice and discrimination based on ethnicity and ancestry is the situation in the Tucson Independent School District where Mexican American Studies has been eliminated as a program of study and a list of particular books bans their use in classrooms. These are books by eminent Chicano and Native American scholars. Banned also are Civil Disobedience, Brave New World and Shakespeare's The Tempest. The logic defies understanding except that it seems to be based on ethnicity and ancestry.

All of this hullaballoo is the result of Arizona House Bill 2281 signed by Governor Jan Brewer banning Ethnic Studies Programs (which includes Chicano Studies) on the grounds that these Programs advocate ethnic separatism and encourages Latinos to rise up and create a new territory out of the southwestern region of the United States. Perhaps those Xenophobes need a history lesson on how the Hispanic Southwest came into the American fold. They also need to look at school textbooks to see how under-represented Asian Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, and Mexican Americans are in those textbooks. Which is why we need Asian American Studies, African American Studies, Native American Studies, and Mexican American Studies. What are white Arizonans really afraid of? HB 2281 has come to the attention of the United Nations which condemns the Bill, citing Arizona’s rage against immigration and ethnic minorities as “a disturbing pattern of hostile legislative activity.” The better word would be “racism.”

Chicano Studies as the Voice of Chicanos

Forty-eight years ago when I began university teaching after some years as a high school teacher of French, there was no Chicano Stud­ies. That is, no Chicano Studies as an organized field of study. To be sure, there were Mexican American scholars working on various aspects of Mexican Amer­ican life and its cultural productions, scholars like Aurelio Espinosa, Juan Rael, Arturo Campa, Fray Angelico Chaves, George I. Sanchez, Americo Paredes, and others. Important as this scholarship was, it emerged amorphously, reflecting independ­ent intellectual interests rather than a scholarship reflecting a field of study. This is not to say that some of these scholars may not have considered their work as part of a field of study conceptualized as Mexican American Studies. Despite its lack of an under-pinning, it was a field of Mexican American Studies, its constituent parts subsumed as American folklore. 

 

This situation created a critical barrier to the public discussion and dissemination of information about the presence of Mexican Americans in the Unit­ed States and their contributions to American society. Until 1960 and the emergence of the Chi­cano Movement, Mexican Americans were charac­terized by mainstream American schol­ars–-principally anthropologists and social work­ers–-in terms of the queer, the curious, and the quaint. That is, Mexican Amer­icans were categorized as just another item in the flora and fauna of Americana. 

The Chicano Movement–that wave of concientizaci­on that came to bloom among Mexican Americans in the 60's transforming them into Chica­nos– help­ed to change American perceptions about Mexican Americans. While Mexican Americans knew much about Anglo Americans, Anglo Ameri­cans knew little about Mexican Americans.

In 1970 I was recruited to be founding director of the Chicano Studies Program at the University of Texas at El Paso, first such program in the state (and still there). By this time, I had become “conscien­tized” as a Chicano. From 1967 on, I had become identified as a Quinto Sol Writer, that is, among the first wave of Chicano writers of the Chi­cano Renaissance which had its beginning in 1966 with the creation of Quinto Sol Publica­tions.

The Arizona Challenge

Mexican American accounts of who they are are being challenged in Arizona. The Tucson Unified School District in Arizona made headlines in recent weeks when it eliminated its Mexican American Studies program. John Huppenthal, the Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction, declared the program illegal under a state law that bans racially-divisive classes. Books by Mexican American authors have been yanked from TUSD classrooms: Message to Aztlán by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales (2001) and Chicano! A History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement by Arturo Rosales (1997). 

Everywhere, there are xenophobic and fas­cist forces that threaten the existence of Chicano Studies. Mainstream suspicions about the ideological agenda of Chicano Studies has become paranoiac. In Arizona there are legislative initiatives to remove from the schools programs deemed to be seditious, programs that promote divisiveness and breed revo­lution, programs like Chic­ano Studies–any ethnic studies program that challen­ges Western values. One Arizona legislator believes that such an initiative will restore the image of the United States as a “melt­ing pot”—that relic salvaged from the reliquary of dystopic America.

Tony Diaz, founder of the literary nonprofit Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say is organizing a caravan from Houston to Tucson over spring break to raise awareness about the situation and taking Hispanic books to Tucson students. He calls it the Librotraficante movement. It begins in Houston on Monday, March 12 and ends in Tucson on Saturday, March 17. Along the way, the caravan will stop in San Antonio, El Paso and Albuquerque, for read-ins and other activities. The caravan will be filled with authors and activists, accruing people as it proceeds toward Tucson.

Como una hija querida, tenemos que defender Chicano Studies porque si no, perderemos nuestro futuro. That’s too important a future to lose, too ex­acting a price to pay. This is the exact moment of history for Chicanos to rise to the occasion. Inaction sustains the status quo. Now, more than ever, we must band together in common cause. Chicano Stud­ies deserves no less. Actually, all Americans must stand up to this current wave of xenophobia.

WORKS CENSORED OR BANNED BY THE TUCSON SCHOOL DISTRICT PER SB 2281

American Government/Social Justice/Education

• Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (1998) by B. Bigelow and B. Peterson 
• The Latino Condition: A Critical Reader (1998) by R. Delgado and J. Stefancic 
• Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (2001) by R. Delgado and J. Stefancic 
• Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000) by P. Freire 
• United States Government: Democracy in Action (2007) by R. C. Remy 
• Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History (2006) by F. A. Rosales 
• Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (1990) by H. Zinn

American History/Mexican American Perspectives 

• Occupied America: A History of Chicanos (2004) by R. Acuña 
• The Anaya Reader (1995) by R. Anaya 
• The American Vision (2008) by J. Appleby et el. 
• Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (1998) by B. Bigelow and B. Peterson 
• Drink Cultura: Chicanismo (1992) by J. A. Burciaga 
• Message to Aztlán: Selected Writings (1997) by R.  Gonzales 
• De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views Multi-Colored Century (1998) by E. S. Martínez 
• 500 Años Del Pueblo Chicano/500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures (1990) by E. S. Martínez 
• Codex Tamuanchan: On Becoming Human (1998) by R. Rodríguez 
• The X in La Raza II (1996) by R. Rodríguez 
• Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History (2006) by F. A. Rosales 
• A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (2003) by H. Zinn

English/Latino Literature 

• Ten Little Indians (2004) by S. Alexie 
• The Fire Next Time (1990) by J. Baldwin 
• Loverboys (2008) by A. Castillo 
• Women Hollering Creek (1992) by S. Cisneros 
• Mexican White Boy (2008) by M. de la Pena
• Drown (1997) by J. Díaz 
• Woodcuts of Women (2000) by D. Gilb 
• At the Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria (1965) by E. Guevara 
• Color Lines: "Does Anti-War Have to Be Anti-Racist Too?" (2003) by E. Martínez 
• Culture Clash: Life, Death and Revolutionary Comedy (1998) by R. Montoya et al.
• Let Their Spirits Dance (2003) by S. Pope Duarte 
• Two Badges: The Lives of Mona Ruiz (1997) by M. Ruiz 
• The Tempest (1994) by W. Shakespeare 
• A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (1993) by R. Takaki 
• The Devil's Highway (2004) by L. A. Urrea 
• Puro Teatro: A Latino Anthology (1999) by A. Sandoval-Sanchez & N. Saporta Sternbach 
• Twelve Impossible Things before Breakfast: Stories (1997) by J. Yolen 
• Voices of a People's History of the United States (2004) by H. Zinn

• Live from Death Row (1996) by J. Abu-Jamal 
• The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven (1994) by S. Alexie 
• Zorro (2005) by I. Allende 
• Borderlands La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1999) by G. Anzaldua 
• A Place to Stand (2002), by J. S. Baca 
• C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans (2002), by J. S. Baca 
• Healing Earthquakes: Poems (2001) by J. S. Baca 
• Immigrants in Our Own Land and Selected Early Poems (1990) by J. S. Baca 
• Black Mesa Poems (1989) by J. S. Baca 
• Martin & Mediations on the South Valley (1987) by J. S. Baca 
• The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools (1995) by D. C. Berliner and B. J. Biddle 
• Drink Cultura: Chicanismo (1992) by J. A Burciaga 
• Red Hot Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Being Young and Latino in the United States (2005) by L. Carlson & O. Hijuielos 
• Cool Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Growing up Latino in the United States (1995) by L. Carlson & O. Hijuelos 
• So Far From God (1993) by A. Castillo 
• Address to the Commonwealth Club of California (1985) by C. E. Chávez 
• Women Hollering Creek (1992) by S. Cisneros 
• House on Mango Street (1991), by S. Cisneros 
• Drown (1997) by J. Díaz 
• Suffer Smoke (2001) by E. Diaz Bjorkquist 
• Zapata's Discipline: Essays (1998) by M. Espada 
• Like Water for Chocolate (1995) by L. Esquievel 
• When Living was a Labor Camp (2000) by D. García 
• La Llorona: Our Lady of Deformities (2000), by R. Garcia 
• Cantos Al Sexto Sol: An Anthology of Aztlanahuac Writing (2003) by C. García-Camarilo et al.
• The Magic of Blood (1994) by D. Gilb 
• Message to Aztlan: Selected Writings (2001) by Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales 
• Saving Our Schools: The Case for Public Education, Saying No to "No Child Left Behind" (2004) by Goodman et al.
• Feminism is for Everybody (2000) by b hooks 
• The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child (1999) by F. Jiménez 
• Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools (1991) by J. Kozol 
• Zigzagger (2003) by M. Muñoz 
• Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Literature (1993) by T. D. Rebolledo & E. S. Rivero 
• ...y no se lo trago la tierra/And the Earth Did Not Devour Him (1995) by T. Rivera 
• Always Running - La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. (2005) by L. Rodriguez 
• Justice: A Question of Race (1997) by R. Rodríguez 
• The X in La Raza II (1996) by R. Rodríguez 
• Crisis in American Institutions (2006) by S. H. Skolnick & E. Currie 
• Los Tucsonenses: The Mexican Community in Tucson, 1854-1941 (1986) by T. Sheridan 
• Curandera (1993) by Carmen Tafolla 
• Mexican American Literature (1990) by C. M. Tatum 
• New Chicana/Chicano Writing (1993) by C. M. Tatum 
• Civil Disobedience (1993) by H. D. Thoreau 
• By the Lake of Sleeping Children (1996) by L. A. Urrea 
• Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life (2002) by L. A. Urrea 
• Zoot Suit and Other Plays (1992) by L. Valdez 
• Ocean Power: Poems from the Desert (1995) by O. Zepeda

UPDATE, Monday, January 16, 2012

Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya 

• Yo Soy Joaquin/I Am Joaquin by Rodolfo Gonzales 
• Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea 
• The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea

Book Censorship Database in this Epoch of Institutional Unraveling by Dr. Tasslyn Magnusson

Friends,

The EveryLibrary Institute and EveryLibrary have partnered with researcher Tasslyn Magnusson, Ph.D., to track and expose the individuals, networks, and organizations behind the growing wave of book bans and challenges in school and public libraries across the United States. Since 2021, Dr. Magnusson has maintained a publicly accessible, meticulously organized database that documents these efforts by school district, library type, and affiliated groups.

This vital resource equips educators, librarians, and advocates with the information they need to defend intellectual freedom and the fundamental right to read. Free to access and grounded in public records, the database is updated regularly with input from the community, helping us all distinguish between genuine local concerns and politically motivated censorship.

In this Epoch of Institutional Unraveling, it’s more important than ever to ask: What knowledge is disappearing? This archive shows us what’s under threat—knowledge we can still access, even if it’s no longer available through many of our schools, classrooms, and libraries.

This is all so incredibly Midieval. The idea that knowledge, stories, and voices are being suppressed or erased through coordinated bans recalls the darkest periods of history when books were burned, censored, or locked away from the public. What we're seeing today—this rollback of intellectual freedom and critical inquiry—echoes those times when fear and power sought to control not just what people could read, but what they were allowed to think.

I’d venture to say this may be the best reading list ever assembled. I even found my award-winning book Subtractive Schooling listed—and I take that as my badge of honor.

—Angela Valenzuela

The EveryLibrary Institute and EveryLibrary are partnering with Dr. Tasslyn Magnusson, an independent researcher focused on the networks, organizations, and individual actors who are leading book banning and book challenge efforts in our nation's school libraries and public libraries.

Access the Data Here: Censorship Attacks 

Dr. Magnusson's spreadsheet of book bans and challenges has been available online since October 2021 to aid library organizations, library staff, education stakeholders, and concerned parents. Her findings have helped numerous school libraries and public libraries. Through this partnership, EveryLibrary and ELI are supporting her ongoing research and monitoring as well as aiding in the discoverability of these valuable resources online. All of these resources continue to be available free of charge to aid local and statewide efforts to defend the freedom to read, the role of libraries in communities and schools, and, most especially, support the people and ideas the books represent.
Dr. Magnusson's Database of Book Bans and Challenges in the United States 2021 - Present

Dr. Magnusson’s research begins near the start of the 2021-22 school year. The tabs are organized by School District, Books Challenged/Banned in School Districts, by public libraries, and books banned/challenged in school libraries. Additional tabs include lists of groups formed to push book bans and challenges and organizations and groups formed to push back against these political actions. The final tab is a list of other relevant articles found during research which includes student and teacher responses to bans as well as investigative pieces on funding of the political groups supporting bans.

The data is available as view only - with sorting capabilities at: “Censorship Attacks”.

Please note that no personal information is collected or solicited by Dr. Magnusson or EveryLibrary/ELI when you visit these free resources. Information about groups and individuals who are involved in book bans or materials challenges are cross-referenced from publicly available sources like news reports, online forums, and social media posts. Dr. Magnusson invites people to report new information or help correct errors and omissions by contacting her at Bookbanschallenges@gmail.com.

Our hope is to help stakeholders understand and differentiate between legitimate questions of local concern and the politicized or performative book and materials challenges that are attacking our libraries. If you are concerned with book banning efforts in schools and libraries, please visit EveryLibrary's Action site to learn more and to sign up to be a part of this national network.

The EveryLibrary Institute is a donor-supported 501c3 non-profit research and public policy organization dedicated to the future of libraries. We are only able to support this kind of important work because of our donors.
Please consider making a donation today.

MEDIA ADVISORY: Capitol Rally in Denver, Colorado to Protect K-12 Public Education, Higher Education, and Research on April 25, 10-11:00 AM

Friends:

Check out the Media Advisory below regarding a Capitol Rally and Press Conference in Denver, Colorado, next week to Protect K-12 Public Education, Higher Education, and Research on April 25, 10-11:00 AM at 200 E. Colfax. 

Yours truly will be one of the speakers at this rally.😊

Hope to see you there.

-Angela Valenzuela

Book bans are so horrific. This is censorship. It's unbecoming of a free society. I feel for this Llano County librarian. I really hope the Llano County community realizes this travesty and supports her even more strongly in the event that they already do. No one should be subjected to this wrongdoing.

We must honor our librarians as their work is sacred.

-Angela Valenzuela

Librarian's wrongful termination lawsuit against Llano County can move forward, judge rules

by Bayliss Wagner, Austin American-Statesman | Aug. 29, 2024

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.

Baker, a 57-year-old veteran and mother of five adult children, now works as a cashier at a hardware store in Kingsland.

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.

The defendants in the case – the county, the Commissioners Court, the county's library director and several community activists who were appointed to the Library Advisory Board during the push for book removals − categorically rejected Baker's claims for legal relief in their June 4 motion to dismiss.

As per Llano County Library Director Amber Milum's writeups, Baker was given a verbal warning and later fired for several instances of "insubordination" and "disruptive" behavior, including calling in sick to attend a library board meeting and falsely stating Milum had sent her. Baker also erected a library marquee that read, "We put the 'Lit' in Literature," a double entendre referring to book burning, according to court filings.

"You are allowing personal biases, opinions and preferences to unduly influence your actions and judgment," Milum wrote in a March 9, 2022 memo noting she had terminated Baker’s employment.

The defendants largely declined to comment on Tuesday's order in response to individual requests sent by the American-Statesman, saying the county could not comment on ongoing litigation.

"We respect the legal process and look forward to finalizing this litigation," Llano County Judge Ron Cunningham wrote to the Statesman on Wednesday.

Commissioner Jerry Don Moss emphasized that the Commissioners Court did not vote for Baker’s termination or order Milum to fire her in a phone call with the Statesman Wednesday.

Baker's case, and the situation in Llano, have drawn national attention as restrictions on books read by children in schools and public libraries generate fierce debate around the country. In June, the Author's Guild in New York City gave Baker the "Champion of Writers" award for her "brave defense of her community's right to read."

For Baker, the judge's order signals that she and her lawyer are "going in the right direction."

"I know what I did was right," Baker said.

Denver-based attorney Iris Halpern, who is representing Baker, told the Statesman she hopes this initial order "sends a message" to libraries and government bodies that are considering placing restrictions on content. Halpern represented another Colorado librarian in a successful wrongful termination suit.

"Libraries are playing politics with First Amendment and constitutional and civil rights, and it's time that that stops happening," said Halpern, a partner at Rathod Mohamedbhai, in a phone interview.

"Librarians like Suzette Baker and other librarians across the country are heroes for protecting our rights and standing up to censorship and discrimination," she added.

The defendants' attorneys – Joanna Lippman Salinas and David Solomon of Austin-based firm Fletcher, Farley, Shipman & Salinas – did not respond to a request for comment.

In November 2021, community member Bonnie Wallace sent a spreadsheet with about 60 books to Milum and requested that librarians remove "all books that depict any type of sexual activity or questionable nudity." The list was based on one compiled the month prior by Texas Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth.

Milum directed Baker to remove the books from circulation in Kingsland, but Baker refused, believing taking them out of the library would constitute a First Amendment violation, according to the complaint. At the time, she wrote in an email to Milum that the library system should counter parents’ concerns with “information on how to effectively see what their children are doing and on how to choose those books.”

In a phone interview Tuesday with the Statesman, Baker noted that the library has a process for patrons to file formal challenges to books, but said that process was never used for the removals in 2021 and 2022.

In total, 17 books were removed. Some were children's books, such as "Larry the Farting Leprechaun." Some were related to puberty, like "It's Perfectly Normal." Others were award-winning adult nonfiction books, including "They Called Themselves the KKK: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group” and “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents." The library serves community members of all ages and books are labeled to indicate their recommended age range.

The county noted in its court filing that public employers have authority to limit speech and speech activities, such as attending public meetings, when that speech contradicts policies or impairs performance.

"Plaintiff's speech was intimately connected with her professional duties and thus is not protected employee speech," Salinas argued in the motion to dismiss.

The defendants note in their motion that neither the Commissioners Court nor the Library Board voted to authorize or order Milum, who oversees all three county libraries, to terminate Baker.

"The Commissioners Court had nothing to do with the termination," Moss, a defendant in the lawsuit, told the Statesman in a phone call Wednesday.

But Baker argues in the lawsuit that the defendants all "planned, authorized, and supported her termination,” including by repeatedly pressuring Milum to have books removed. She also contends that the county terminated her employment to discriminate against minority groups through book bans and suppressed her First Amendment rights as well as those of other residents.

Baker is seeking back pay, attorney's fees and an injunction ordering the county to cease behavior that discriminates against minorities and suppresses residents' First Amendment rights.