The director of a Tennessee library system was fired after she refused to move more than 100 books that discuss gender identity or contain violence from children’s shelves to the adult section.
The director, Luanne James, was fired Monday at a board meeting of the library system in Rutherford County, outside Nashville. The decision came after Ms. James refused to comply with a March 16 decision by the board to remove certain books from the children’s section.
The books talked about at that meeting, which some board members said would encourage “gender confusion” or promote violence, included “Welcome To Your Period,” a book that discusses gender identity and refers to transgender children, and a book about the Harlem Hellfighters, an all-Black World War I infantry regiment.
A few days after that vote, Ms. James said she would not comply with the board’s decision to relocate the books. Her lawyer, Chuck Mangelsdorf, wrote in a letter to the board that she had a constitutional obligation “as a public librarian, to resist an unlawful directive to segregate books by moving a vast number of books out of the section of the library where they are readily accessed by parents and youth.”
The order to remove the books, he wrote, “was, in essence, an order to hide books inside the library, to squirrel the books away from the eyes of young people.”
“Such governmental action is the antithesis of what citizens should expect from a publicly funded library,” he continued.
Board members did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ms. James’s firing is the latest escalation in an ongoing battle over free speech and expression in public libraries and educational institutions, as conservatives seek to limit the exposure of children to certain topics. Tennessee, a deeply conservative state, has embraced the Trump administration’s push to impose ideological limitations on reading material.
Tennessee and several other states have passed widespread book bans that make it more difficult for children and young adults to obtain books that some consider obscene or harmful.
Last year, Tennessee’s secretary of state, Tre Hargett, directed the state’s public libraries to review their collections, and cited an executive order from President Trump that prevents federal funds from being used to promote “gender ideology.”
At the Monday board meeting, several people spoke during the public comment section in support of Ms. James, saying the librarian was protecting their First Amendment rights. Others said they were glad that the board had voted to move the books.
“I stand by my decision,” Ms. James said at the meeting, just a few seconds before her firing. “I will not change my mind.”
After the board made a motion to fire Ms. James, a raucous round of boos arose from the members of the public attending the meeting. The board then voted 8-3 to terminate her employment.
Sonia A. Rao reports on disability issues as a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for early-career journalists.
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