County library board in Tennessee fires director over explicit books

The Rutherford County Library Board on Monday night voted 8-3 to fire its library director, Luanne James, after she refused to move more than 100 children’s books to adult library sections, local station WTVF reported. Board members previously voted to move the books over their content, which included LGBTQ themes, witches, and controversial social justice themes, according to the outlet. Community members spoke strongly from both sides of the issue during the tense public meeting, with shouts breaking out from the crowd at least once, another local outlet WZTV reported.

Before her firing, James wrote in an email shared with local outlet WSMV that she considered the relocation of LGBTQ titles to restricted adult areas to be viewpoint discrimination. Moving the books would violate both the ethics code of the American Library Association and the First Amendment, she said. James earlier agreed to move about 400 books from children’s to young adult’s sections in county libraries, partially due to their content and partially because of cataloging inconsistencies, according to board documents.

Dig deeper: Read Bekah Bernhardt’s report on legal wrangling over explicit books.