Autauga-Prattville Public Library sued over policies restricting book access

Groups critical of restrictive library policies at the Autauga-Prattville Public Library filed suit Thursday against the library, alleging the policies violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama on behalf of Read Freely Alabama, an organization that has challenged restrictions; the Alabama Library Association and individuals and children who use Autauga-Prattville Public Library.

The lawsuit challenges policies that a newly-installed board of trustees overseeing the library  approved in February. The plaintiffs are challenging the “selection criteria” of the policy that board members adopted, and requests the court grant a permanent injunction enjoining the library from enforcing that section of the library board policies.

“They are overbroad,” the complaint says. “They discriminate on the basis of content. And they are vague.”

Messages were left on Thursday with board chair Ray Boles and Laura Clark, an attorney for the library.

The Autauga-Prattville Public Library has been mired in controversy for more than a year since a parent complained about a book she borrowed that contained inclusive pronouns.

Some parents formed a group called Clean Up Prattville that eventually morphed into Clean Up Alabama, who took their concerns to the library board and then county commission and city council meetings, reading passages from books they claimed are sexually explicit and inappropriate for children.

Clean Up Alabama managed to convince county commissioners to appoint new members to the library board who aligned with their views. Members also managed to convince Gov. Kay Ivey to recommend changes to the APLS administrative code and for the ALPS to disassociate itself from the American Library Association.

The new board adopted new policies in February that impose rules on a wide range of operations related to the library. The lawsuit focuses on one section of the “Selection Criteria.”

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“For the avoidance of doubt, the library shall not purchase or otherwise acquire any material advertised for consumers ages 17 and under which contain content including, but not limited to, obscenity, sexual conduct, sexual intercourse, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender discordance,” the policy states. “Age-appropriate materials concerning biology, human anatomy, or religion are exempt from this rule.”

Minors younger than 18 years old are subject to the selection criteria and will not be able to borrow books that contain the themes mentioned in the selection criteria. Staff may purchase books and remove items from the shelves that contain those themes for children who are 17 years old and younger.

Staff will also place a label on any books, even those in the adult section, that mention those issues.

“First, these policies are fatally overbroad,” said Jessica Anne Morton, senior counsel with Democracy Forward, an organization representing the plaintiffs. “Everyone agrees the First Amendment allows governments to protect against true obscenity, but these policies go so far beyond that. They take a sledgehammer approach, and so the policies, on their face, include so many things that are well beyond obscenity, including gender identity and sexual orientation.”

The controversy has led to a complete turnover in the membership of the local library board over the last year, and contributed to the firing of former director Andrew Foster. Foster filed a lawsuit against the library last month.

The “facially overbroad” restrictions, the lawsuit alleges, violates patrons’ free speech rights by restricting  patrons’ right to constitutionally-protected materials that are not obscene.

The lawsuit also claims that the “Selection Criteria” discriminates based on content.

“Specifically, each policy unconstitutionally interferes with minors’ right to check out and read library material protected by the First Amendment, through the imposition of restrictions based on content broader than obscenity (such as sexual conduct, sexual intercourse, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender discordance),” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit also alleges that the policy violates due process because it does not specifically outline what should be prohibited from the collection.

“The Selection Criteria Policy and the Library Cards for Minors Policy each deprive the Plaintiffs of their Fourteenth Amendment right to Due Process because of their vagueness,” the lawsuit states. “Specifically, both the Selection Criteria Policy and the Library Cards for Minors Policy fail to provide a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice of what is prohibited, and are so standardless that they encourage discriminatory enforcement.”

Angie Hayden, a member of Read Freely Alabama, said the adoption of the new policies earlier this year “certainly solidified” their concerns.

“They happened so quickly that we knew, for certain then, that we needed to start investigating our options,” she said.