
Since the first books were challenged at LPL by Michael Lunsford in 2021, book and materials challenges have exploded across Louisiana, primarily due to his relentless campaign to restrict the rights of families to make their own choices about reading materials. Strangely, however, Lafayette, despite being the epicenter of the book banning movement, has not seen any challenges since 2022. Is this because the library board and administration have stopped receiving requests? Is this because they have suddenly come to accept the principles of free expression and the rights of library patrons?
Or is it because they have simply been censoring books behind the scenes, without the public’s knowledge or input?
The Law
In 2023, as part of his campaign for governor, then-Attorney General Jeff Landry and his allies in the Louisiana Legislature passed SB7, a bill defining the exact definition of “sexually explicit material” in libraries and laying out a series of regulations and policies public libraries must adopt or risk losing state funds. Once signed by Democratic Governor John Bell Edwards, the bill became LA R.S. 25:225, and it is very specific about how those new policies are to be carried out. The three main points of the law are:
- Libraries must use community standards when acquiring materials.
- Libraries must create tiered card systems giving parents control over which materials their children are allowed to check out.
- Libraries must implement a Reconsideration policy, giving patrons a means for challenging the placement of materials. These challenges must “be reviewed by the library board of control. The library board of control shall determine whether the library material meets the definition of sexually explicit material by majority vote in an open meeting.”
Recent Collection Development Policy in Lafayette
A library’s Collection Development Policy is where libraries outline the guidelines used for how books are selected, and it’s where these new legal provisions are laid out for each library system in Louisiana. Since it’s takeover by far-right activists, the Lafayette Board of Control has been busy amending our own Collection Development policy repeatedly in order to codify the imposition of their own particular value system on the library patrons of our area.
- In February 2023, they revised the policy to include Jeff Landry’s definition of “sexually explicit,” even before SB7 passed the LA Legislature.
- In December 2023, they disaffiliated with the American Library Association, as well as changed the policy’s language to include references to LA R.S. 25:225. At this same meeting, the board also voted to give the Director & Board the ability to reconsider materials without a formal reconsideration request.
- In April 2024, they revised the mission statement to exclude any references to “free,” “equal,” “cultural,” “diverse,” and “recreation.“
- In June 2024, they added a tiered card system with restricted cards for minors.
- In October 2024, they removed any statistics related to Lafayette and the community the library serves.
During the December 2023 meeting, Stephanie Armbruster (who introduced the changes) claimed she had been told by an assistant Attorney General (informally) that her proposal was in compliance with the law. Based on that assessment, the board passed the motion. However, the public was never shown proof of this correspondence nor given a draft of the changes before the vote. Armbruster simply read the changes out loud, claimed she had legal protection, and the board voted. You won’t find the specific changes in the minutes, either; you have to track down the meeting audio to find any record of this information at all.
What could be the reasoning behind going so far outside the wording of the law? Perhaps books had been moved prior to this decision without a reconsideration hearing, and those decisions needed to be justified? Perhaps the policy was changed because a patron threatened to file Reconsideration Requests on each and every relocated book, and the board knows those meetings draw a lot of unwanted attention to themselves.
Examples:
- In November, 2021 Danny Gillane removed the ENTIRE teen non-fiction section, reshelving the books in the adult section in order to appease board members and avoid the vote to ban a single challenged book.
- In 2022, an investigation by The Acadiana Advocate found Gillane moving books with active Reconsideration Requests, calling his efforts an attempt to find “compromises.”
- In Summer 2023, several books on the topic of puberty were moved to the adult section after a complaint from a patron, without a reconsideration hearing. Note in particular that the librarian given the original complaint had investigated and determined that the book should stay where it was. Nevertheless, it and others were moved, and the Juvenile Health Mature section was scrapped.
These are just the ones we know about. News of many others have come down to us.
Since that time, even though other parishes like St. Tammany and Livingston have fought tooth and nail against an avalanche of Reconsideration Requests, LPL has seen no book challenges.
How many books have been moved? We’ll probably never truly know. Thanks to a policy with dubious legal grounds, including no formal opinion from the Attorney General, these books are now out of reach to anyone (including, potentially, 17-year old high school seniors) with a restricted card.