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Gordon and state library call on ALA for conversation about group’s direction

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Maya Shimizu Harris with the Casper Star-Tribune, via the Wyoming News Exchange

CASPER — Gov. Mark Gordon, State Library Division Director Patricia Bach and State Librarian Jamie Markus sent a letter to the American Library Association Aug. 14 expressing worry that the organization “has become politicized” and calling on the group to open discussions with Wyoming to address the concern. 
 
“This change has been reflected in views expressed by its current leadership, as well as actions and guidance that appear to stray from ALA’s core mission ‘to provide leadership for the development, promotion, and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all,’” the letter, addressed to American Library Association Executive Director Tracie Hall and signed by Markus, the state librarian, says. 
 
The letter, which the governor’s office provided to the Star-Tribune, calls on Hall “to open a dialogue” with Wyoming through the Western Council of State Libraries and the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies. 
 
“Active discussions and action toward meaningful change will inform the decision to renew our membership for our 100th year,” the letter says. “Wyoming’s public, school, and academic libraries are independently governed and this decision will not impact them.” 
 
The letter adds that, “regardless of the outcome of these discussions,” the state library will continue to support the Wyoming library community “through active participation in the Wyoming Library Association,” the state chapter of the American Library Association. 
 
Freedom Caucus letter 
 
The message from the state library to the ALA comes amid calls from the hard-line Wyoming Freedom Caucus for Wyoming to cut all ties with the national library organization over uproar about the association’s direction. 
 
On Aug. 14, 13 caucus members, along with Secretary of State Chuck Gray, signed a letter addressed to Gordon that asked the governor to end the state’s relationship with the ALA. The letter describes the organization as having “taken a sharp leftward turn” with a “self-avowed Marxist” currently at its helm. 
 
It raises concern about materials on the association’s “Rainbow Book List,” which aims to encompass “an array of diverse stories and identities representing the LGBTQIA+ youth experience,” according to the ALA’s website. 
 
“Wyoming does not need to take orders, entertain recommendations, or accept suggestions from the American Library Association,” the Freedom Caucus letter says. “Our local communities can best curate the books on our library shelves the Wyoming way.” 
 
Gray said in a separate statement that he was concerned the state library’s association with the ALA and other groups has led to “an inappropriate use of government resources to promote partisan electioneering.” 
 
He referenced a training listed on the state library’s website about how to run for local office, which states that there has been an “attack on Americans’ freedom to read” because of “far right elected local officials.” (The training was not connected with the ALA, but with a different nonprofit.) 
 
Markus, the state librarian, said the addition of the training was a mistake, and staff removed it from the calendar once they read the description. (Markus wasn’t aware that the training description had remained on a library news blog post, which is what Gray referenced, and said he would make a note for staff to address the post.) 
 
The state library looks at a list of more than 100 nonprofit groups that offer free trainings. 
 
There’s now a different process in place to check each of the trainings and make sure they don’t “cross the political line,” Markus said. 
Gov. Mark Gordon lambasted the Freedom Caucus letter, saying in a Wednesday statement to the Star-Tribune that the message “smacks of a veiled threat couched as a media stunt.” 
 
“The letter implies that Wyoming citizens — Wyoming parents — are not capable of deciding how best to govern themselves and need the self-appointed morality police to show them the way,” he said. “Wyoming people can think for themselves, and Wyoming parents have a right to determine what is best for their kids.” 
 
Wyoming Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. John Bear said on Thursday that he doesn’t think Gordon’s characterization of the letter writers “even deserves a response,” but shared that he thinks the state library’s message to the ALA is “a move in the right direction.” 
 
Local control 
 
To be clear, the state and local libraries aren’t obligated to “take orders” from the ALA and don’t have to carry books from any of the organization’s lists. Local libraries can also independently choose whether or not they want to associate with the ALA regardless of the state library’s relationship with the organization. 
 
“Individual libraries make that decision at the local level,” Conrrado Saldivar, president of the Wyoming Library Association, a chapter of the ALA, told the Star-Tribune on Wednesday. “And that’s something that we definitely stand for in Wyoming, is the ability for all of the public library systems in Wyoming to make those local decisions for their community members and whatever the interests are for the people who are using their libraries.” 
 
Gordon similarly emphasized in his statement that “whether or not the Wyoming State Library remains a member of the ALA has no impact on any local public library’s decision to be a member or what content and books are in those locally-governed libraries.” 
 
If the state library were to end its membership with the ALA, it’s likely that it would no longer be able to send staff to the ALA’s annual conference. The conference is the largest gathering of library vendors from across the country in one place at one time. 
 
The state library buys a number of resources from library vendors and supplies them to libraries across the state, and being able to meet with vendors at the ALA conference provides “an advantage of time and place and location,” Markus said. 
 
He added that, if the state library were to leave the organization, it would no longer “have a seat at the table to talk to them about how their national perspective doesn’t fit Wyoming values or could be changed to reflect how things work in a small, rural state like Wyoming.” 
 
Increased pressure
 
Last month, Bear, a Gillette Republican, sent out a mass Freedom Caucus email that called on the Wyoming State Library to cut ties with the ALA. 
 
In the message, Bear applauded the Montana State Library for ending its relationship with the organization and praised the Campbell County Library Board — which his spouse, Sage Bear, sits on — for taking the lead in withdrawing the county library from the association in October. 
 
The Campbell County Library Board voted to fire former library director Terri Lesley last month after she refused to voluntarily resign over disputes about what books should and shouldn’t be in the library, the Gillette News Record first reported.
 
The vote came after disagreements between Lesley and the board over a new book “weeding” policy the board had passed earlier this summer. 
 
While board members said that, under the new policy, Lesley and library staff could throw out books they alleged were sexually inappropriate, Lesley expressed concern about getting sued, according to the Gillette News Record. 
 
Lesley spoke about her experience with these issues in a Thursday interview with CNN. 
 
Earlier this month, Wyoming Family Alliance President Nathan Winters, a former lawmaker, also sent out a mass email petition asking Gordon to drop the ALA. According to a follow-up email from Winters, Gordon called him to say that “he is looking into something better for Wyoming libraries than the ALA!” 
 
“This is exciting,” the email says. “It shows that your messages really can make a difference for our state.” (Gordon didn’t confirm the phone call when asked by the Star-Tribune.) 
 

 
History 
 
The ALA, a Chicago-based nonprofit, is the oldest and largest library association in the world, according to its website. The association provides professional development and mentorship resources, among other things, for library staff, and does advocacy work for library professions. 
 
The state has had a relationship with the ALA for 99 years. 
 
Since 2021, two Wyoming libraries have received grants from the ALA totaling $30,000, according to Saldivar, the Wyoming Library Association president. ($20,000 went to the Fremont County Library System when it faced severe budget cuts after the pandemic, and $10,000 went to the Fort Washakie School and Community Library to provide literature and other resources to remote populations on the Wind River Reservation.) 
 
Wyoming has had its own chapter of the national organization since 1914. 
 
The Wyoming Library Association has about 220 members right now, Saldivar said. He estimated that number represents somewhere between 20-25% of library staff in the state of Wyoming. 
 
The conservative furor over the ALA ignited after Emily Drabinski, the president of the national organization, tweeted a message last year in which she described herself as a “Marxist lesbian.” (Drabinski’s tenure lasts a year, and she will be cycled out this upcoming summer.) 
 
Her comment prompted the Montana State Library to end its relationship with the ALA last month. 
 
Drabrinski’s social media comment and tenure as president of the ALA is just more oxygen on a fire that’s already been blazing in Wyoming and across the nation around debates about what information kids should be allowed to access in libraries. 
 
Much of this concern has targeted books with LGBTQ characters. In Wyoming, some of these books include “Gender Queer,” a graphic novel by Maia Kobabe that explores the author’s gender identity and sexuality, and “Trans Bodies, Trans Selves,” a resource guide for transgender individuals by Laura Erickson-Schroth. 
 
Those who have advocated for keeping such materials in libraries have voiced suspicion that opposition to these books really boils down to opposition to LGBTQ identities. 
 
‘Slowly spreading’ 
 
While much of the original focus in Wyoming centered primarily on the question of what materials school libraries should or shouldn’t provide, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and its sympathizers in the state have expanded that discussion to include public libraries and other entities. 
 
During this year’s legislative session, for example, Casper Republican Rep. Jeanette Ward, who is now a member of the caucus but was not at the time, sponsored a bill that would have expanded child porn definitions and repealed obscenity exemptions meant to allow for the teaching of sexual health topics, prohibiting not just schools, but colleges, universities, museums and public libraries from keeping or providing materials that fell under the new definition. (The bill died in committee). 
 
“Not requiring tax payers to pay for obscenity is reasonable and just,” Ward told the Star-Tribune in a January email regarding her bill. “These books will continue to be available in the marketplace, but not paid for by taxpayer dollars. Reasonable people everywhere recognize these books as obscene and reasonable people do not want their money used to subsidize obscenity.” 
 
Saldivar, the Wyoming Library Association president, fears that attempts to restrict access to certain books could eventually spread even to the marketplace, just as these efforts have spread from school districts to public libraries and other entities in Wyoming. 
 
Last year, Republican politicians in Virginia attempted to restrict the marketplace sale of “Gender Queer” and “A Court of Mist and Fury” by Sarah J. Maas, claiming the books violated the state’s obscenity law. (A judge ultimately dismissed the attempt.) 
 
“So it’s just slowly spreading,” Saldivar said, recalling the Virginia case. “It’s just different flavors of arguments being used in different places.” 
 
Bear said the Wyoming Freedom Caucus is “not interested” in restricting the purchase of certain books on the marketplace; it’s the use of taxpayer dollars to purchase materials that he believes are “harmful to children” that is the caucus’ “main concern.” (During debates over this issue in Natrona County, at least one person said they would personally be willing to pay for these books if spending taxpayer money was the main concern.) 
 
Wyoming solutions for Wyoming problems? 
 
The Wyoming Freedom Caucus’ Aug. 14 letter to Gordon describes ending the state library’s relationship with the ALA as an “opportunity for Wyoming to blaze its own trail.” 
 
“You mentioned in your speech closing out the 67th Legislative Session in March that you deeply desire Wyoming solutions for Wyoming problems,” the letter says. “We are here to present you with one.”
 
“We hear about these books on Fox News and CNN, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t a ‘Wyoming problem,’” the letter says later on. 
 
But in his Wednesday statement, Gordon accused the Wyoming Freedom Caucus of “spending time dithering to comply with direction from out-of-state groups on what is largely a local issue” while his administration “is hard at work doing things that have an actual impact” on Wyoming’s economy. (As an example, Gordon touted the state’s win this week in a court case that approves Wyoming’s State Implementation Plan regarding emissions regulations from the Wyodak and Naughton power plants, allowing all units of the two plants to continue operating.)
 
Gordon closed this year’s legislative session by telling lawmakers that the state needs “Wyoming solutions for Wyoming problems” and highlighting his concern about Washington D.C. think tanks that “develop model pieces of legislation” to influence national politics. (The Wyoming Freedom Caucus is partnered with the State Freedom Caucus Network, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that aims to establish state freedom caucuses across the country.) 
 
His words followed a turbulent legislative session that saw several bills — many of which the Wyoming Freedom Caucus championed — modeled after controversial legislation from other states. 
 
Though not unusual for ideas from other states to make their way into Wyoming legislation, some lawmakers expressed concern about such bills that hadn’t been vetted in the interim session. 
 
One prominent example was Afton Republican Sen. Dan Dockstader’s “Parental rights in education” bill modeled after a Florida measure critics call the “Don’t Say Gay” law. 
 
The bill would have banned classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, or more generally in a way that’s not age or developmentally “appropriate.” It also would have given parents more authority to opt kids out of health services and questionnaires, among other things. (The bill missed the deadline for introduction in the House.) 
 
Arguments in support and against the bill in many ways paralleled those heard in debates about school library books. 
 
Proponents of the legislation said it would protect students and empower parents. But opponents said the bill would step on First Amendment rights and questioned, for example, if it would bar teachers from assigning books with LGBTQ characters or talking about LGBTQ people.
 
This story was published on August 22, 2023. 

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