Patty Hector, director of the Saline County Library, listens during public comment on a resolution that would restrict children’s access to books that contain “sexual content or imagery” at a Monday, April 17, 2023, meeting of the county Quorum Court. The court adopted the resolution. At left is Leigh Espey, library manager. Hector was fired Monday, Oct. 9, 2023, and Espey succeeded her as library director. (John Sykes/Arkansas Advocate)
A Central Arkansas librarian who was fired in 2023 over a dispute with local officials regarding library materials filed a federal lawsuit Monday against the county that fired her.
Saline County Judge Matt Brumley fired county library director Patty Hector in October 2023. The county governing body had given him the power to do so several weeks earlier via an ordinance. Hector was Saline County Library director for seven years, and her firing came after she spent months rebuffing pressure from elected officials to relocate certain books considered “inappropriate” for minors.
Hector’s complaint alleges that the defendants, Brumley and the Saline County Quorum Court, unconstitutionally used their executive and legislative power to retaliate against her.
“Hector’s termination, and the ordinance ensuring it, was punishment for her opposition to censorship,” wrote her attorneys, Jess Askew of the Kutak Rock law firm and John Williams of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas.
The complaint asks the court to determine that the defendants violated Hector’s First Amendment right to freedom of speech and that the ordinance used to fire her was an “unconstitutional bill of attainder” because it “was meant to ensure Hector’s termination.” A bill of attainder allows government officials to punish someone for a perceived crime without a trial.
Hector also seeks damages for emotional distress, back pay from the date of her firing to the date of the court’s eventual ruling and attorneys’ fees, among other things.
Williams said in an ACLU press release that Hector’s firing “send[s] a chilling message to public servants who dare to stand up for their values and the rights of their communities.”
“Standing up against censorship should never cost someone their job,” said Williams, the ACLU of Arkansas’ legal director. “Ms. Hector was fired for defending the right to read freely and for refusing to let political pressure dictate the operation of a public library. Retaliation against her for speaking out on these critical issues is not only unconstitutional — it’s an attack on the principles of free expression and access to information that public libraries stand for.”
Hector said in 2023 after her firing that she would seek legal action, and in 2024 she unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the Saline County Quorum Court.
“I’ve spent my career fostering access to diverse perspectives and ensuring that public libraries are places where everyone feels seen and supported,” Hector said in the news release. “I could not stay silent as calls for censorship targeted marginalized communities and undermined our library’s mission. Losing my job was devastating, but I refuse to let these actions go unchallenged.”
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge James Moody of the Eastern District of Arkansas.
Background
Saline County has been one of multiple local battlegrounds in the past few years’ statewide dispute over children’s access to books about LGBTQ+ topics, sex education and systemic racism. Several county residents said at quorum court and library board meetings in 2023 that no one under 18 should be able to access this content, calling it “indoctrination.”
The Saline County Republican Women “began calling for censorship” of these materials in early 2023, shortly after Brumley took office in January, Hector’s complaint states.
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At the same time, the bill that became Act 372 of 2023 was moving through the state Legislature. It would have given elected officials the final say over whether to relocate challenged library materials some consider “obscene” and made librarians legally liable for disseminating such materials.
In April 2023, after Act 372 was signed by the governor, the all-Republican Saline County Quorum Court recommended that the local libraries “relocate materials that are not subject matter or age appropriate for children, due to their sexual content or imagery, to an area that is not accessible to children.”
The quorum court’s resolution said the library should “proactively take steps” to ensure children cannot access certain content in light of Act 372, which did not take effect until Aug. 1, 2023.
Similarly, Brumley had told Hector in March 2023 that she should “be ‘proactive’ about censoring books that SCRW was complaining about, ‘regardless of legislation, regardless of law and ordinances,’” her complaint states.
Resolutions are not policy changes but instead are statements of opinion by elected bodies. The quorum court’s April decision “imposed no obligation on Hector or the Library Board, a point that Brumley has admitted,” Hector’s complaint states.
Hector then spoke to several media outlets, including the Advocate, expressing her discontent with the resolution. She “rarely, if ever, spoke to the media” before the April quorum court meeting, but she told broadcast news outlets KARK and KATV that she believed “the resolution was about hurting marginalized groups, not about removing inappropriate materials,” according to her lawsuit.
Her public statements to media outlets and to the quorum court at its May 2023 meeting were protected speech under the First Amendment, her complaint states, because “restriction of library materials was a matter of public concern, as evidenced by the activism and press attention” and because her “interest in commenting on matters of public concern outweighed the county’s interest in suppressing her speech.”
At the May quorum court meeting, Hector denounced the “hateful rhetoric” aimed at the library that made her feel “dehumanized.” The legal complaint includes a transcript of her comments.
“There is nothing wrong with those books,” Hector said at the meeting. “It’s not illegal to be gay or trans.”
Brumley quoted this statement back to Hector in his own speech to the Saline County Library Board at its regularly scheduled meeting later that month. He said Hector’s words gave him a “high degree of concern in regards to the leadership and the operations of the Saline County Library,” and he criticized the board for what he saw as insufficient oversight of Hector.
State law gives county library boards oversight of library affairs, including the appointment of the library director. Hector’s complaint states that the Saline County Library Board “held the authority to fire Hector [but] refused to exercise its firing authority and continued to stand by her.”
At the same meeting, the library board tabled a resolution that would have given Brumley power to relocate or remove library books.
Scrutiny and vitriol
Once Brumley had the authority to fire Hector, he consulted with the Arkansas Association of Counties, and the organization said he could fire her “for her public comments about the book issue,” according to her complaint.
The eventual policy that Brumley used to fire Hector was an amendment to the 1978 ordinance that created the county library board. Under the original ordinance, the board had “full and complete authority” to maintain the library and “the exclusive right and power” to purchase library materials. The amendment removed those phrases and added “subject to oversight by the Saline County Judge,” giving Brumley hiring and firing power over library staff.
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Additionally, the library board is now required to submit all changes to library policy to the county judge for approval, submit its annual budget to the quorum court for approval, and obtain insurance in case of “claims that may be made due to actions or inactions” of the board and library administration.
The library’s finances came under scrutiny from many of the same county residents who sought the relocation of books they considered inappropriate for minors. Some of those individuals sent the library a series of Arkansas Freedom of Information Act requests for financial documents. They later claimed at public meetings that both the financial information they received and the library’s slow FOIA response time were signs of misconduct and called for Hector to be investigated and fired.
In October 2024, the Saline Courier reported that Brumley rejected a citizen-led effort to put a measure on the November ballot to cut the library’s funding. SCRW Secretary Codie Crumpton submitted 171 signatures to Brumley in favor of reducing the county library millage from 1.7 to 0.9 mills.
Crumpton told the Advocate she plans to circulate another petition after she “learned a lesson” from Brumley’s rejection of the first one over technicalities. She expressed disappointment that Leigh Espey, Hector’s successor as Saline County Library director, has “stood her ground” when approached about controversial library content.
In May 2023, a billboard connected to Saline County Republicans was erected on Interstate 30 in Benton, saying “STOP X-rated library books.” A month later, it said “Director Hector MUST GO.”
Hector’s complaint notes that she is not the first to sue Arkansas county officials over allegations of library censorship. The Crawford County Library relocated LGBTQ+ children’s books to “social sections” in January 2023 after public pressure. Three parents sued the county judge and quorum court, as well as the library board and interim director, and a federal judge sided with the plaintiffs and ordered the library to return the books to their original locations last year.
Additionally, parts of Act 372 were temporarily blocked by a federal judge in July 2023. The injunction became permanent in December 2024, and Attorney General Tim Griffin appealed the ruling last month.
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