This comes after Republican Tennessee Secretary of State Trey Hargett sent two letters earlier this fall. The first, sent on September 8, said that in order to get the state and federal grants that pass through his office, libraries must comply with a Tennessee law that bars diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices from agencies, as well as President Donald Trump’s executive order on “gender ideology,” which effectively ended federal recognition of transgender and nonbinary individuals.
As the report notes, none of these orders mention anything about library books. However, Hargett said complying with the executive order enforces the book ban because it states that “federal funds may not be used to promote gender ideology.”
Not only do executive orders typically not apply to state and local governments, but federal funds received by Tennessee libraries are not used to purchase books at all. Instead, according to the Secretary of State Websiteit “provides all state residents with online access to essential library and information resources, including licensed databases, the statewide library catalog and interlibrary loan system, bibliographic services, and materials for the underserved.”
The Every Library Institute, an advocacy group that supports federal funding for libraries, He said That Hargett’s instructions “contain significant errors, likely exceed the Secretary’s authority and reflect a political agenda rather than an impartial or accurate interpretation of federal or state law.”
“Hargett sets a dangerous precedent by placing Tennessee state and municipal government under the authority of any executive order issued by any president,” the group continued. “Executive orders are not laws.”
But even if the executive order applied to local libraries in Tennessee, the mere presence of books containing LGBTQ stories and characters does not constitute promotion of gender ideology, Crosby and Sims said. The classic fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood involves a wolf eating a young girl, but does not encourage violence. Children’s books are stories, not instruction manuals.”
On October 27, Hargett sent another letter, giving libraries 60 days to conduct an “age appropriateness review” of all books in the children’s section to find any that might not be in compliance with Tennessee’s age appropriateness law or with Trump’s executive order.
As Ken Paulson, director of the Center for Free Expression at the University of Middle Tennessee, said, malethe age-appropriateness law, which was last updated in 2024, “is modeled on obscenity laws and prohibits nudity, excessive violence and explicit sex, which are hardly limited to children’s departments. Furthermore, the law applies to school libraries, not public libraries.”
Although Hargett did not provide any criteria for how to evaluate which books should be purged, he did provide an example of one that he felt violated both: Fred gets dresseda 2021 picture book by New York Times Bestselling author Peter Brown. like Popular information male:
The book, written by a straight, cisgender man, does not contain any characters from the LGBTQ community. Instead it depends on a Childhood experience By the author in which he tried on his mother’s clothes and makeup. If a book about a boy trying to wear his mother’s clothes is the strongest example of “reinforcing gender ideology” that Hargett can identify, it raises questions about the necessity of revision.
Earlier this month, the state’s Rutherford County Library System, which serves the cities of Smyrna and Murfreesboro, closed several of its library branches for up to a week to “meet new reporting requirements” from Hargett’s office.
It is unclear why the Rutherford County system decided it needed to close in order to conduct the review, and it has not been made clear whether other library systems are expected to do the same.
As former librarian Kelly Jensen male For the blog Riot bookthe Rutherford County system made its own efforts to ban trans-friendly books, but reversed that policy earlier this summer for fear of litigation after a Murfreesboro ordinance labeled “homosexuality” a form of “public indecency.” It resulted In the city he is forced to settle a lawsuit for $500,000.
For the board of the Rutherford Library System, Kelley wrote, Hargett’s order is “a convenient way to allay their concerns about litigation, which led them to change their anti-trans books policy earlier this summer. If the directive is from the state, they should comply. The Tennessee Secretary of State gives permission slips to public library boards to ban them.”
This week, a group of 33 major publishers, library advocacy groups, and free speech and civil rights organizations signed an agreement letter to Hargett expressing “deep concern” about his review mandate.
The coalition included PEN America, the American Library Association, the National Coalition Against Censorship, and the transgender rights advocacy organization GLAAD. Major publishing houses also signed on, including Penguin Random House, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster.
“These types of reviews create enormous administrative burdens on library systems and often lead to illegal censorship, increasing liability risks for local communities and the state,” the groups said. “Many libraries, uncertain about the legal and procedural basis of authorization, have had to redirect limited resources, with some branches temporarily closing to complete these reviews, which are implicitly assumed to be essential for future funding.”
“The demands in your letter need immediate clarification, because it is not reasonable to expect libraries to follow directions that would risk violating applicable law, including the U.S. Constitution,” they added. “It is illegal to remove books from public libraries because some people don’t like them. This is a well-established legal principle.”
Rutherford County Library Alliance, which challenge Anti-LGBTQ+ municipal laws as well as censorship policies followed by the library board, He said “We have seen firsthand the tangible harm of the Secretary’s directives – the closing of libraries during story time, the intimidation of professional librarians, and the breakdown of democratic representation in our public library system.”
“We hope that Minister Hargett will do his bit to promote library development by upholding our constitutionally guaranteed rights and our highly trained librarians, rather than enabling censorship from 0.001% of our society to 100% of our society,” the coalition added.
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