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PORTSIDE CULTURE

HOW LIBRARIANS FOUND THEMSELVES ON THE FRONT LINE OF THE CULTURE WAR
 
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Melina Moe
May 2, 2025
Los Angeles Review of Books
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_ A librarian tells her story of being on the front lines of the far
right wing assault on libraries and knowledge. _

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_That Librarian
The Fight Against Book Banning in America_
Amanda Jones
Bloomsbury
ISBN: 9781639733545

IN 2024, THE American Library Association (ALA) reported
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that a record number of books—4,240 unique titles—had been
challenged in the United States the previous year, a 65 percent
increase over 2022. These challenges, the ALA found, were often driven
by right-wing interest groups using online platforms to organize
objections that bundled dozens (in some cases, over 100) titles into
lists that they recommended their followers petition to have removed
from their local shelves. Though in theory a (small-d) democratic
process through which community members can request titles be
considered for removal from library or school collections, book
challenges have been recently sharpened as a partisan tool. Nearly
half of the targeted titles represented the voices and experiences of
LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals.

Early data suggests these numbers actually dipped slightly in 2024,
with attention and outrage monopolized by the full-court media press
of a presidential election. (In the two years prior to the 2024
election, stoking hysteria about libraries and their perceived threat
to traditional American family values was a fertile ground for the
Right.) Today, though receptiveness to censorship certainly remains,
book selection has been swept up into the broader Trump-Vance agenda
to remake American institutions. Libraries have still come in for some
attention, however: on March 14, President Trump signed an executive
order to eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the
only federal agency dedicated to supporting US libraries, and a
primary funder of library schools across the country. And a week
later, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office ordered
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the Naval Academy to identify books related to so-called diversity,
equity, and inclusion themes housed in the school’s Nimitz Library
and to take them out of circulation.

 
The past few years of book challenges have been concentrated in public
libraries, not school libraries (there was a 92 percent increase in
titles in 2023 targeted for censorship in public libraries compared to
an 11 percent increase in school libraries, per the ALA). Yet many of
the figures
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who have become targets of internet conspiracy theories and personal
defamation have been public school librarians, including Amanda Jones.

Jones is a middle school librarian in Livingston Parish, Louisiana.
Her recent book, _That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in
America _(2024), documents her experience being thrust into the very
online controversy of book challenges in public libraries. Her voice
is engaging and the story she tells is by turns dismaying, enraging,
and, for the cynics among us, not all that surprising. As a 44-year
resident of her hometown, Jones is shocked to find herself suddenly
portrayed online as a cartoonish villain. Living (literally) next-door
to her childhood home, she faces allegations of purveying sexualizing,
age-inappropriate material to minors, even by parents of children she
had taught and community members she had known for decades.

Jones’s introduction to the unfair and loony world of being attacked
by online trolls came following her participation in a community
library board meeting. In the summer of 2022, she drove to her local
branch library to read, alongside nearly 30 others, some preprepared
thoughts about how book censorship would degrade the public collection
and do a disservice to young people and adults who deserved to find a
variety of lived experiences represented in the books of their
hometown libraries. In her parish, a campaign had already begun in
favor of censoring an unpublicized list of “problem titles.” Those
leading the charge gestured performatively to the display of Dr. Seuss
picture books, as if to suggest: _your child might be doing some
perfectly innocent browsing and then stumble on_—as Jones tartly
puts it_—_The Joy of Sex_ or the_ Kama Sutra.

At the meeting, there were also plenty of open-minded library
defenders. One attendee described her personal and religious bona
fides before saying, “my personal convictions are mine, while the
Public Library is for everyone and is funded by everyone in the
parish, conservative, liberal, Christian, and non-Christian alike. Our
libraries are safe educational spaces for all within our parish.”
These are the liberals of a waning era, and the tolerant and
reasonable tone of in-person conversations is quickly swamped by
grotesque online attacks, centering on Jones, whose profile as a local
librarian for adolescents was used by her online attackers as a
fun-house mirror to recast her remarks on censorship as
“grooming,” advocacy for presenting “inappropriate” materials
to underage readers, and an imaginatively creative range of crimes
against children. Initially, Jones was overwhelmed (one Facebook
group, Citizens for a New Louisiana, posted a picture of her with a
target on her head). Yet, as her book chronicles, she soon went on to
mount a legal defense and filed suits against two particularly active
online accusers for public defamation.

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Though justifiably enraged and hurt, Jones also proclaims righteous
confusion. She is a school librarian, sure, but she spoke out against
censorship as a community member. What’s more, she was addressing
the role of the public library, an institution that offers resources
for all ages. Her book—which is also a postmortem of how, in the
United States, public sector employees better not expect to be granted
a separate, personal identity—attempts to address both issues: the
public defamation of a librarian accused of willfully using book
selection to pervert patrons, and the broader question of how books
should be selected (and challenged) in public collections.

Let’s start with the second issue, which is less successfully
tackled, yet aligns with a growing suspicion in the US that there is
no issue neutral enough to allow disagreement. First, Jones is
impatient with the outsize expectations laid at the feet of
librarians. She stresses that the extent of what librarians owe their
patrons, including the care they provide to those who wander in
through their library doors, is elastic but not infinite. Parents, she
points out, should bear some responsibility for what their kids read,
and ought to leave other parents alone to make those decisions as
well. “Libraries,” she points out, “are not daycare centers,”
where young readers should be dropped and allowed to peruse whatever
crannies of the stacks they drift into. In other words: Yes! There
_are_—and should be—adult books in a public library.

Second, Jones defends the _process_ of book challenges, pointing out
that libraries generally have policies in place for patrons to object
to individual titles. Public libraries and schools are, after all,
institutions set up to serve the public, so it is not outlandish that
the public might have a role in shaping the collections.
Unfortunately, these systems are easily co-opted to serve broader
social and political agendas—particularly when processes intended
for a community are overwhelmed by the sheer scale of scrutiny and
attention funneled through sites such as Book Looks, a clearinghouse
of “objectional content” started by a member of Moms for Liberty.
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(This offers one local-level application of the political strategy
Steve Bannon has memorably called “flooding the zone.”) Though
this is not Jones’s focus, it’s worth going into the weeds to
understand how these processes are intended to act precisely as the
kind of bridge between public employee and patron that Jones’s
online trolls are calling for.

Book challenges can be initiated by individuals or groups who find a
book’s content objectionable, citing reasons such as explicit
language, depictions of violence, sexual content, or discussions of
race, gender, or sexuality. In schools, parents, teachers, or
community members can file challenges to have books removed from
curricula or libraries. Libraries and schools generally have policies
for responding to these challenges, which usually require the
submission of a formal request (for example, the ALA’s “request
for reconsideration”
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form) explaining their objections. The review process can differ; most
often, it includes educators, librarians, administrators, and
sometimes parents or community members, who determine whether to
retain the book, relocate it to a different section, or remove it
entirely. Both the ALA and PEN America emphasize the importance of a
clear route—an established and transparent policy—for the public
to challenge books, with decisions based on already-established
selection criteria and the broader needs of the community, not the
objections of a vocal minority.

All of this may seem dry, but book challenges have become central in a
battle for libraries and librarians. (It is worth noting that book
challenges did not seem to be a big concern when the Library Bill of
Rights [[link removed]] was first
adopted by the ALA Council in 1939 and most recently re-ratified in
2019. This document emphasizes the library as a xxxxxx against
censorship yet does not offer a standardized challenge process.)
Today, though, library challenges are emblematic of the broader fight
over directing public funds for public goods—which encompasses
disagreement of what constitutes those goods, as well as the public
and democratic process of how they are chosen. After all, book
challenges are _part _of public engagement, not inherently hostile to
it. In the past, the removal or recontextualization of debunked
eugenicist theories or racist children’s books was critical for
libraries to weed through their collections and thereby (to invoke the
ALA’s language) remain “growing organisms”
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rather than static repositories. The question is how to prevent this
fundamentally democratic credential of these public institutions from
being captured and distorted. A rich selection of books is sure to
contain voices that offend some patrons, but the position of the
library and the librarian is to entertain public criticism without
letting one vocal minority suppress the representation and choice of
others. After all, what Jones is arguing _for _is the better
representation of marginalized voices in public spaces, so as to
constitute what Michael Sandel, considering similar questions in the
context of college campuses, has called a “safe enough” space: one
in which many, often disagreeing factions can cooperate. Yet to be
open and democratic while fostering tolerance is a monumental
challenge, one that has thrust librarians into the public spotlight in
a way they have not experienced before.

 
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One of the central ironies of Jones’s experience is that—at least
on (legal) paper—her ongoing court cases
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are suits against personal defamation, not attempts to litigate book
banning in the United States. But even a local judge seemed to
conflate the two issues, allowing lawyers to describe decontextualized
passages from provocative books as evidence of their right to attack
Jones online. To be clear: Jones did not single out any titles in her
statement about censorship at the community meeting, let alone suggest
adding any of these books to her middle school library. Yet the court
case became a referendum on books as porn rather than the fantastical
and reputation-damaging statements hurled at Jones by her enemies.

Jones’s book therefore also reads as an affecting testimony to what
it is like to participate in public debate as an ordinary American
today. She loses her first case (it is currently being appealed)
because the judge identified her as a “public figure,” thereby
reducing her legal protection from online defamation.
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And yet, what had transformed Jones from a public school employee into
a supposedly legitimate target of public discourse was her
participation in a community meeting. Speaking out—what we might
have once called ordinary democratic participation—has, in Jones’s
community, become an activity with the potential to undermine ordinary
citizens’ rights.

In the age of social media, this transformation can be devastating.
Yet Jones has a surprisingly neutral attitude toward what she calls
the “socials.” Social media platforms enable the rapid
proliferation of slimeball personal attacks. What emerges is a swamp
of jaw-dropping slurs and hard-to-think-anyone-could-believe
conspiracy theories, which Jones meticulously documents (some of the
more PG-13 ones are reprinted in the book) like a well-trained
archivist, hoping that this record of assault will eventually make
itself useful in her case. Of course, social media is also the route
by which former students and family members offer support. Jones is
frequently disappointed that she does not receive more _public
_support from this sympathetic network; still, she is relatively
uncritical of the platforms themselves as infrastructure for online
hate. (More traditional media comes off as relatively thoughtful and
sympathetic; it is through radio
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and print
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outlets
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that she first told
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her story.)

Jones may have written her memoir as a clarion call of survival after
a specific battle, yet the emotional odyssey she lays out likely
reflects what public employees in many sectors are also
experiencing—the surprise when liars get away with saying anything;
the sense that the small-town life of her childhood is gone (or
wasn’t entirely what she remembered); the feeling of betrayal when
her “school family” turns out not to be brave and loyal, but work
colleagues who don’t rush to put their own reputations on the line
defending Jones. This idea, that work won’t love you back, may be an
especially bitter pill for librarians, for whom a sense of vocation
is, as Fobazi Michelle Ettarh has famously pointed out,
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often burnished with a patina of love, sacrifice, and the hope of some
kind of emotional reciprocity from the public being served. And, as
Jones notes near the end of her book, the increasing politicization of
the connection between libraries and the education system—bridged,
in effect, by public school librarians—suggests that the trials of
librarians are likely not over yet.

Indeed, writing almost a year after the publication of her harrowing
book, amid the unprecedented use of federal budget cuts to punish free
speech and intervene in higher education,
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one can only imagine that the worst—whether it be book bans,
defamation, or other attacks on vital public spaces—is yet to come.
A recent example makes clear just how precarious the future is: in
April 2025, North Dakota lawmakers passed a bill
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that would have made it a criminal offense for school or public
librarians to provide materials deemed “sexually explicit,” a term
left notably vague in the legislation. The bill, which passed both
chambers of the state legislature, would have exposed librarians to
fines or jail time merely for fulfilling their role in offering broad
access to literature. It was ultimately vetoed
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by Governor Kelly Armstrong, who argued that the law put librarians in
an “untenable situation,” trapping them in a “completely
unworkable” process, even as he acknowledged concerns about
age-appropriate materials. Yet the fact that such legislation advanced
as far as it did underscores how deeply libraries—and the
individuals who sustain them—have been drawn into broader cultural
and political conflicts. If there is a lesson to take from Amanda
Jones’s story, it is that librarians are not merely guardians of
books, but also participants, willingly or not, in a struggle over
what public life in the United States should be.

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Melina Moe is the curator of literature at Columbia University’s
Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

* Libraries
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* censorship
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* Right Wing Politics
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* book bans
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