REPORTING: As Louisiana’s Far-right Continues to Attack Public Libraries, Pro-library Activists in Lafayette Parish Net a Victory (short read)
Updates from Livingston, Lafayette, and East Baton Rouge library systems.
***Short read: Though I’m a longform journalist, in-between publication of my heavily researched features—which take a while to write—I'll pop-in to provide short updates on what’s happening around Louisiana and the south.
Libraries are inherently democratic institutions. All you need is a library card, your curiosity, and the willingness to step through the doors. Once inside, right at your fingertips, will be all the knowledge you could want. It’s a magical place, that as a grown ass man, still fills me with the same wide-eyed wonder I felt as a child, when I first entered a library, and my mother told me all of those books were free to read. It was like a whole new world had opened up to me.
But future generations of kids might not get that same wonder; one day, their favorite book may not be free to read. Their world will possibly get smaller, as book banners in the GOP have been fighting to erase the stories of racial minorities and queer folks and any idea that goes against their worldview. That’s because the books, says the GOP, are “graphic.” “Graphic” being a word whose meaning has been extracted and contorted to be a political dog-whistle rooted in anti-queer sentiments, coming from the contemporary far-right movement.
The movement by the far-right all across the nation to hijack and remake whole library systems, in order to purge their respective systems of objectionable material, is alive and well in Louisiana. This is all largely exasperated by a group called Citizens for a New Louisiana: a far-right group founded in Lafayette, Louisiana by Michael Lunsford. They’ve taken credit for the library related chaos in three locations: St. Tammany, Lafayette, and Livingston Parishes.
Most recently, Livingston Parish Library Board had a far-right majority takeover that was solidified on July 15th. This came after Livingston Parish President Randy Delatte, abruptly and without notice, fired Library Director Michelle Parrish, after placing a proposal up for a vote to do so. The board, which is comprised of 9 members plus the Parish President as ex-officio, voted 6-4 to fire her, which came after a private two hour annual performance evaluation. According to Cathleen Hyde, a member of Livingston Parish Library Alliance, “the board members who voted against her firing walked out in mass resignation.”
This is the second library director in two years that has left (or was fired in this case) due to meddling by right-wing activists, with the first being former Library Director Giovanni Tairov, who resigned after sustained pressure from the far-right.
Parrish’s firing left behind five library board members within the orbit of Citizens for a New Louisiana (CFNL), plus the Parish President, who has shown he’s willing to capitulate to the extremists. The five remaining members then created a hiring committee, of which they appointed themselves to, according to Hyde, which will allow them to stack the board with like-minded people.
Incidents like this can make it easy to slip into despair. But, also this week, something good happen:
The far-right in Lafayette took a loss.
This week, CFNL-aligned Lafayette Parish Library Board had to settle a lawsuit that stemmed from the violations of activists Melanie Brevis and Lynette Mejia’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
“The lawsuit was a real morale boost… Our judge was appointed by President Trump, so [Michael] Lunsford & [Robert] Judge can't claim this was some kind of activist ‘lawfare’ type of situation.
The far-right often use municipalities as labs of autocracy, figuring out what divisive tactics work, before taking their show on the road to other Parishes/Counties.
In Louisiana, Lafayette Parish was the lab, before moving to St. Tammany and Livingston Parishes. Some of the events that garnered attention from the press include, but aren’t limited to: trying to fire a popular librarian for putting up a book display that included queer teen romance; neglecting for years to build a library in North Lafayette, which has a high Black population, and is the only part of town with no public library. The library construction would eventually proceed.
On multiple occasions, people have been removed from meetings, the grounds being that they were “disturbing the peace.” AKA, the board had people thrown out for disagreeing with them. Former Library Board President (current board member), Robert Judge, stirred controversy online when he blamed the parent of a queer teen for their child’s suicide on LinkedIn. (Image below)
The incident that led to the lawsuit happened in January 2023, when Melanie Brevis, a co-founder of Louisiana Citizens Against Censorships along with Mejia, was removed from a library board meeting by deputies from the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office, who were acting as hired security for that night. She accused Judge of being “hateful” and “prejudicial.” It should be noted that supporters of Judge and the far-right library board were never silenced or removed when accusing library supporters of being groomers.
Now, the defendants—Lafayette Consolidated Government, library board President Daniel Kelly, and Judge—have agreed to settle with Mejia and Brevis, who were represented by the Tulane First Amendment Clinic.
In our correspondence, Mejia said, “The lawsuit was a real morale boost… Our judge was appointed by President Trump, so [Michael] Lunsford & [Robert] Judge can't claim this was some kind of activist ‘lawfare’ type of situation. The judge was clear that [Robert] Judge had denied both Melanie [Brevis] and I our [First Amendment] rights.”
As a part of the settlement, the Lafayette Library Board can no longer:
read aloud the “disturbing the peace” law that was used as grounds to remove people from meetings;
Have guards posted in front of the room during meetings;
Display or pass out papers detailing the “disturbing the peace” law;
And more.
In addition, the defendants owe Mejia and Brevis $13,200 in damages.
Mejia said in our correspondence, “One of the tactics these anti-library people use is, after they take control of library boards, they blatantly break the law [with regards to] open meetings and do everything in their power to silence any dissent. This settlement says unequivocally that those tactics aren't going to stop or silence our fight to protect libraries in Louisiana.”
This isn’t the first win for Mejia or Louisiana Citizens Against Censorship, as the group, along with allies, successfully organized during the 2024 legislative session to pushback against heinous anti-library bills that were introduced, including one bill that could’ve led to librarians being arrested. The pro-library camp sent over 42,000 emails to lawmakers, resulting in seven of the nine bills introduced being killed.
Though Brevis and Mejia’s victory is something to be happy about, the battle for our libraries is not close to done.
Coming around the bend is further attacks on libraries, but from the state’s executive branch.
Early this week, a former library worker and pastor named Luke Ash was allegedly fired from his job at East Baton Rouge Library for not using a coworker’s preferred pronouns, so he claims. It didn’t take long for CFNL to chime in, posting on their Twitter account about the situation.
But then Governor Jeff Landry weighed, cryptically posting “last year, we addressed pronouns in schools. I guess next year we will have to all public funded bodies.”
Whatever may come, I’ll be keeping an eye on it. More media outlets should be covering the movement in Louisiana to hijack library boards but that ain’t the case.
But just know, that out in the streets and in board meetings; in the state capitol, or via sending thousands of emails, people are fighting back. And in some cases, winning. It is just time for more people to join the fight.
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I also wrote a crime novel. K that’s it.
Latest work:
This is the first article I have read by Mr Cherry and I believe him to be one of the best authors on this platform. Others might have more links, but Mr Cherry’s content is his own. As somebody who is also a “grown ass man” who gets giddy like a school girl when walking into a library, what is happening in Louisiana pisses me off. There is not enough literature celebrating minorities to begin with; reducing it is beyond dumb
Third paragraph you wrote 'exasperated' (which also feels appropriate, LOL) but I believe you mean exacerbated. :) Regardless, thanks for the reporting!