FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — A former Wyoming library director who was fired amid an uproar over books with sexual content and LGBTQ+ themes that some people complained were inappropriate for young people and who sought to remove them from youth shelves will be paid $700,000 after settling a lawsuit.
Terry Leslie was fired as director of the library system in northeastern Wyoming’s Campbell County in 2023, two years after a dispute over the book at the Gillette Library. Leslie filed a lawsuit last spring over her termination and reached the settlement with county officials on Wednesday.
“I feel right,” Leslie said. “It’s been a bumpy road, but I will never regret standing up for the First Amendment.”
Campbell County, a major coal mining area in the western high plains, is among the most conservative areas in one of the most conservative states.
Public officials there sided with the book’s objectors and violated Leslie’s First Amendment rights, Leslie claimed in her federal lawsuit against Campbell County, including its committee and library board.
The district denied Leslie’s allegations. Only Leslie’s performance — not the dispute over the books — played a role in her dismissal, the district alleged in court documents.
The private attorney the county hired to prosecute the lawsuit, Patrick Hoelscher, and county attorney Nathan Hinks, did not immediately return phone messages Wednesday seeking comment.
Among the books challenged at Gillette are: “This Book is Gay” by Juno Dawson, “How to Make a Baby” by Anna Fiske, “Doing It” by Hannah Wheaton, “Sex is a Funny Word” by Corey Silverberg, and “Dating and Sex: A Guide for the 21st Century Teenage Boy” by Andrew B. Smiler.
“We hope that at the very least 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 Leslie’s attorney, Iris Halpern. “These are public entities, they are government officials, and they have to take into account their constitutional obligations.”
Halpern and her company supported Rathod Mohamedbhai in Denver Library staff fired elsewhere in recent years. Under the settlement agreement, Leslie is waiving her lawsuit, although a separate lawsuit she filed against three individuals who objected to the books continues.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency charged with enforcing discrimination laws, allowed a lawsuit against county officials based on a previous EEOC complaint filed by Leslie.
Source link
