Local Michigan library board backs away from policy to sequester LGBTQ+ themed books

A local Michigan library’s board of trustees will not move forward with a controversial policy to sequester challenged books to a special section or out of view from the general public – which sparked First Amendment and LGBTQ+ discrimination concerns.

The fledgling policy was being considered by the Cromaine District Library in Hartland, located in Livingston County near Howell, which raised eyebrows and tensions because many of the books being challenged in the library contain LGBTQ+ characters or themes.

Attorneys and advocates who voiced opposition to the policy said the sequestration of challenged books based almost exclusively on the anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs of some board or community members was discriminatory and a book ban in all but name.

Much like the battles over prohibiting library books or criminalizing them for minors that have played out over the last few years, activists and attorneys across Michigan have said that similarly sequestering or restricting access to books runs afoul of the First Amendment.

The board discussed the policy in June at a special meeting that saw some community members removed from the library and ended with a visit from the Livingston County Sheriff’s Department to make sure the meeting remained orderly.

Members of the Cromaine District Library Board of Trustees on Thursday, June 19, backed off from the sequestration policy being discussed by the board since January. The board instead voted to adopt a policy that would simply label books found to contain extreme violence or graphic sexual content.

Sarah Neidart, director of the Cromaine District Library, told Michigan Advance that the policy allows for non-prejudicial, viewpoint-neutral labels, specifically crafted to notify patterns “that materials may contain graphic violence or sexually explicit material as defined ‘by law.’”

“This was the conclusion of an effort by the board to work together to craft a policy that retains the right of local parents or guardians to restrict what their children read, rather than rely on staff to censor what a child may access in the library,” Neidart said in a statement.

The amendment to the policy can be found in Article 9, Section E.

“If the director determines the material may contain graphic violence or sexually explicit material (as defined in the Appendixes), the material may be: relocated within the collection, and/or labeled with, ‘this book may contain graphic violence or sexually explicit material – Cromaine District Library,’” the amended policy reads.

Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan told the Cromaine Library Board of Trustees that it was monitoring the situation and urged members against sequestration of challenged books or using labels to deter patrons from reading or seeing LGBTQ+ materials.

In response to the new policy adopted late last week, Jay Kaplan, a long-time staff attorney with the ACLU of Michigan specializing in LGBTQ+ rights, told the Advance that it was important to understand how the library would define graphic violence and sexually explicit material.

“It’s probably legal and constitutional for a library board to have that authority, but we just want to make sure that it’s not misused,” Kaplan said. “Certainly, there’s been some comments by members of that library board that would seem to indicate that one might be concerned that it would be misused.”

Kaplan said the ACLU of Michigan and other groups would be watching closely to see how the labeling process unfolds.

“There’s been a number of books that … one person has complained about and those books feature LGBTQ+ characters and content,” Kaplan said. “Hopefully, this new policy won’t be used as a way to label books – not because they are graphically violent or sexually explicit – but because they contain [LGBTQ+] subject matter.”