, Carolina Public Press ; Last-ditch legal effort tries to halt NC regional library system breakup over LGBTQ+ content
"Local debates capture national attention
The heated debate in Yancey is just one more example of a larger national trend: the transformation of public schools and libraries into political battlefields.
John Chrastka is executive director at EveryLibrary, a self-described “non-partisan, pro-library” political advocacy organization. He told CPP that the emergence of social conservative groups seeking to limit materials in public libraries has led to policy changes at both the state and local level. Sometimes, he said, the best means of pushing back is through the courts.
“Sometimes (court) is the only place that you can go, because you can organize all day long locally and the politicians and the political actors won’t listen because they’re not in for the rule of law,” Chrastka said.
First Amendment challenges are common in these library disputes, but Chrastka said an often underlooked litigation strategy is through a civil rights lens.
Federal law dictates that all people are entitled to “equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages and accommodations of any place of public accommodation.” Public libraries, being taxpayer-funded institutions, are considered places of public accommodation.
“So many of the book bans, so many of the challenges to displays, so many fights over what kind of programming is done in the libraries is based on the comfort of the majority,” Chrastka said.
“If the majority population isn’t comfortable with a minority population — whether it’s race or gender or sexuality or religion, we see these fights. The relevance of a program, the relevance of a display, the relevance of a title to a minority population should be considered in that civil rights framework.”"
