Alabama board defunds local library after complaints over 'inappropriate' books [View all]

Source: Aol/AP

Updated Fri, March 21, 2025 at 11:44 PM EDT


The public library in Fairhope, Alabama — a picturesque city on the shores of Mobile Bay — has found itself in the crosshairs of battles over library content. The Alabama Public Library Service Board of Trustees voted Thursday to withhold state funding from the Fairhope Public Library after complaints from conservative parents about books in the teen section. In the same meeting, the board voted to immediately dismiss the executive director of the state library agency, who had been planning to resign.

Board Chairman John Wahl, who is also the chair of the Alabama Republican Party, said board members believe the Fairhope library is in violation of state policies to protect children from inappropriate materials. The books cited by the upset parents included “Sold," a National Book Award finalist about a girl who is sold into sexual slavery in India. The actions come amid a broader national culture war over library content and programs and a surging number of challenges to books on library shelves.

The American Library Association’s list of the most-challenged books of 2023 included many with LGBTQIA+ or sexual content. “I think that the GOP chair on the State Library Board is forcing the removal of books just because of anti-library extremists. I think that’s ignoring the voices of Fairhope taxpayers and library users,” said Amber Frey of Read Freely Alabama, an organization that has opposed the restrictions.

The action against the Fairhope Library is the first taken under a new Alabama law and 2024 administrative code changes that say to receive state funding, local libraries must have policies to safeguard youth from “sexually explicit or other material deemed inappropriate for children or youth.” Wahl said they aren’t trying to ban the books, but he maintained the state code requires “the actual relocation of these books out of youth sections."

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