The “social section” in Crawford County Library’s Van Buren branch (Screenshot from court documents)
The Crawford County Library began moving certain materials, mostly with LGBTQ+ themes, out of segregated “social sections” and into their original sections at each of the five branches Tuesday morning, in compliance with a federal court order, library system director Charlene McDonnough said.
Former director Deidre Grzymala created the social sections between December 2022 and January 2023 as a “compromise” with the county quorum court after members of the public said children should not have access to LGBTQ+ content.
In May 2023, three parents in the county sued the quorum court, County Judge Chris Keith, the five-member library board and the library’s interim director, Eva White, who took over after Grzymala’s resignation. The plaintiffs sought a permanent injunction and claimed segregating LGBTQ+ books was “unlawful censorship of materials” based on “an extreme and malevolent view of the Bible.”
On Monday, U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes III ordered the defendants to move the materials in the social sections to “appropriate sections in general circulation without consideration of whether they approve or agree with the viewpoints expressed in such materials, and without consideration of whether the viewpoints expressed in such materials are unpopular or controversial.”
Holmes’ ruling agreed with the plaintiffs that the social sections were based on discrimination against “books containing viewpoints that are unpopular or controversial in Crawford County,” violating the First Amendment.
The plaintiffs were Rebecka Virden, Nina Prater, Samantha Rowlett and their minor children. Virden said Tuesday that the group declined to comment on the ruling.
Keith and county attorney Gentry Wahlmeier did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
McDonnough became the county library director and a defendant in the lawsuit in January. She did not comment on the ruling but said she was complying with both Holmes’ order and the request from the library board to do so.
Board chairman Keith Pigg said he personally opposed the social sections to begin with, “not so much because it was segregation, but because it allowed children’s books and adults’ books within arms’ reach of each other… which was defeating the purpose” of keeping children away from books some consider inappropriate.
Tammi Hamby, Pigg’s predecessor as board chair, could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Before she was appointed to the board, she and her husband, Jeffrey Hamby, were vocal opponents of the availability of LGBTQ+ content where children can access it. They called it “grooming a generation of children to feel this is normal and an accepted way of life” in a letter to Crawford County pastors after the December 2023 quorum court meeting.
Crawford County is also a defendant in another federal lawsuit filed last year over Act 372 of 2023, which would change how libraries decide to remove materials from circulation. The law also would criminalize librarians’ decisions about materials.
The challenged portions of the law are currently under a temporary injunction, and the case is set for trial this month.