I Was Booted Off the Library Board

To the editor:

I was canned after almost fifteen years with the Advisory Board of the Fayette Public Library and Heritage Museum and Archives (library) in La Grange. My tenure will expire on Dec. 31, 2023 because I failed to get approval from the current Board for a three-year term extension starting Jan. 1, 2024. Failure came during our recent Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023 Board meeting held in the Conference Room of the library located at 855 S. Jefferson Street.

The rejection, although very troubling, was expected and discussed during the previous week with several business and civic leaders, who have been following a complaint of religious discrimination lodged against the library. A husband and wife (couple) living in Fayetteville filed this complaint with the Library Director on or before Aug. 18, 2023.

The complaint, according to the Director, was as follows: “They (the couple) would like to have a weekly Bible study in the meeting room which is against the current policy. Religious activities and weekly meetings are not allowed per the current policy.”

Such a policy barring religious activities is a violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act and in opposition to the Code of Ethics of the American Library Association. This practice and enforcement of religious discrimination in the Fayette Public Library may have been in place for as long as eighteen years.

Area ministers, who give the opening prayer before the bi-monthly meetings of the La Grange City Council, have not been invited to do the same in the library conference room because it is prohibited. How could such religious discriminatory language exist under the watchful eyes of the Board and the City Council representative who is present at every Board meeting? This discriminatory language was written by a previous Director of the library and prior to 2014 according to a recent report. However, this same policy was rewritten by the current Director and submitted to the Board earlier this year for its input and approval. Unfortunately, the religious discriminatory language remained intact. With the receipt of the complaint in August, I and one other Board member quickly did our homework and reported our findings to the Board. Online services noted that policies for public meeting rooms were under attack in libraries across the nation, but, fortunately, the federal courts have ruled time and time again in favor of the First Amendment, which protects the rights of religious groups for meeting room access.

By coincidence, I was a member of the same Bible study group taught by the Fayetteville couple who lodged the complaint. I disclosed this immediately to the Board. During the fall of 2022, this same Bible study group, including myself, met in the evening without incident in the Fayette Public Library conference room for about seven weekly sessions. The Fayetteville couple tried to repeat the same reservation a year later for the months of September and October 2023 but were denied access by the Director. The couple’s complaint for religious discrimination was filed shortly thereafter. On Aug. 21, 2023, I and one other Board member voted to rescind the religious discriminatory language in the library policy. However, no action was taken by the Board or Director and all communication ceased after that date, except by me, until the Advisory Board met on Sept. 5, 2023. Present at the September meeting were seven board members including myself, the Director, and more than a dozen members of the public including the Fayetteville couple. La Grange Mayor Jan Dockery was an invited guest and thanked the Board for their service and welcomed the guests in attendance. She explained that she has been in contact with several citizens as well as the office of Senator Lois Kolkhorst.

During the meeting and under New Business, the Director reported that she and the staff removed the religious discriminatory language from the meeting room policy. Several other changes were also made. Since I did not receive notice or a written copy of the written changes, I asked for discussion on the motion to accept but was denied a time. After the Board meeting, I lodged a complaint against the Board for not following Roberts Rules of Order newly Revised Addition as per our By-Laws, which gave me ten minutes. To deny me discussion requires a roll call vote of at least five members. None of these actions were taken by the President of the Advisory Board. Even though the unconstitutional language was removed from the policy on Sept. 5, 2023, the Fayette Public Library’s calendar and reservation policy has become more restrictive. The policy following the Advisory Board meeting of Sept. 5 now requires two months advance notice for a reservation. Such a policy is in violation of the Code of Ethics for the American Library Association, which states the following: “Libraries should write policies in inclusive rather than exclusive terms. A policy that the library’s facilities are open ‘to organizations engaged in educational, cultural, intellectual, charitable, advocacy, civic, religious, or political activities’ is an inclusive statement of the limited uses of the facilities. For example, if a library allows charities and sports clubs to discuss their activities in library meeting rooms, then the library should not exclude partisan political or religious groups from discussing their activities in the same facilities. If a library opens its meeting rooms to a wide variety of civic organizations, then the library may not deny access to a religious organization.”

The Director is now in total control of the calendar. There are no checks and balances in place. The Advisory Board and the appointed City Council representative will be unable to monitor reservation requests. The Director will be able to pick and choose as to who comes and who goes.

The library’s meeting room policy does not allow multiple sessions per month for any civic group, and yet, the Director has the authority to make exceptions to the rule and does currently with a Yoga class, which has been designated as a library affiliate. Meditation and exercise are encouraged and given special treatment with two sessions per month. The same was not offered to the Christian Bible study group of the Fayetteville couple. I am an advocate of this City of La Grange library but not with certain members of the current Board and staff. A Fayetteville couple, who were teachers of a Christian Bible study class, were unwilling to let things pass and lodged a formal complaint in August 2023 for religious discrimination. I supported their effort to get things right and now I am being shown the door because I was doing my job to protect the public and not the Board and the Director, whose actions have been nothing less than blatant.

I have expressed these concerns to the Advisory Board, the Director, the acting La Grange City Manager, the Mayor, one member of City Council, the La Grange Citizens Alliance, the Fayette County Record and the Fayette County Republican Women. The Fayetteville couple have done the same with religious, political and business leaders within this community and beyond. Now it’s time for the City of La Grange to get the Advisory Board into balance. Monsignor Harry Mazurkiewicz, who was a founder of the library and retiree in 2002, was obviously a godly man. I would think that prayer and the pledge of allegiances to the US and Texas flags were regular occurrences during his tenure with the library but unfortunately, not now.