By Linda Hardman
DWGC, Legislative Chair
It may not be the best time to begin a career in library science. Google the benefits of a position as a librarian, and you learn that it’s a rewarding and fulfilling job, not stressful, with appropriate pay and time off benefits.
Perhaps no longer. The pressures now are tremendous. Librarians have become targets of school boards and superintendents, as well as activist groups intent on controlling content and the availability of books. It may be especially hard on school librarians, who seem to answer to everyone.
South Carolina Education Secretary Ellen Weaver has just released a draft regulation on the management of booklists and content standards for public schools. Weaver, an extreme moralist, is the founder and former CEO of Palmetto Promise, a right-wing think tank. She has also ended her department’s partnership with the S.C. Association of School Librarians. And the State Library has announced it is no longer a member of the American Library Association.
Much of the pressure on school librarians is coming from an organization called Moms for Liberty. Deemed a “domestic terrorist organization” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Moms are not the only activist group attempting to take over school boards in South Carolina, but it is certainly the loudest and most organized.
Founded in 2021 by two former Florida school board members, the organization is committed to anti-student inclusion activities and the modern parental rights movement. Moms for Liberty grew out of the opposition to public health regulations for COVID-19, but it also opposes LGBTQ+ and racially-inclusive school curricula, and advocates book bans. Its nationwide chapters combat what they call the “woke indoctrination” of children.
They advocate for book bans in school libraries and endorse candidates for public office who align with their conservative views. They also use social media platforms to target teachers and school officials, advocate for the abolition of the U.S. Department of Education, advance conspiracy propaganda, and spread hateful imagery and rhetoric against the LGBTQ community.
Its national debut occurred in 2021 on the Rush Limbaugh show. Membership now has grown to 110,000 in over 250 chapters in 42 states, including South Carolina. Visible backers include Florida governor Ron DeSantis, Dr. Ben Carson, former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, cable personality Megyn Kelly, and musicians Larry Gatlin and John Rich. Julie Fancelli, one of the heiresses to Publix Grocery Stores, is one of their a large financial backers.
The disruptive and repressive activities of Moms for Liberty are already having a big impact here in South Carolina. A year ago, a Moms for Liberty majority won seats on the Berkeley County school board. At their first meeting, they passed a ban on teaching Critical Race Theory, fired the newly elected superintendent and hired his runner-up, fired the board attorney, discussed cutting property taxes, and set up a committee to remove books they deemed to have inappropriate sexual content.
This year, Charleston hired Dr. Eric Gallien, a highly-lauded educator from Racine, Wisconsin. Selected from among 60 applicants, Gallien took over in July from an interim superintendent in place since the December 2021 resignation of Dr. Gerrita Postlewait, who resigned about the same time a Mount Pleasant real estate agent named Tara Wood founded a Moms for Liberty chapter. Wood is an ally of Corey Allen, a right-wing radical and associate of the Proud Boys, who has been quoted as saying, “We’re coming for the school boards and the State House.” In the meantime, the Charleston legislative delegation pushed through legislation to abandon countywide school board elections for single-member districts, which opened up all the seats on the school board. In a crowded field, five of the nine winners received 38% or less of the vote, and only two won majorities. Moms for Liberty backed five of the newly-elected members.
Dr. Gallien made a few personnel changes as he settled into his new position, seeking to bring in a former Wisconsin colleague and changing the responsibilities of a Charleston employee. It was the latter move that started the trouble, because the board has a policy that forbids changes among senior staff without the express approval of the school board. In September the school board voted 5-4 to suspend Dr. Gallien with pay for creating a hostile workplace for the woman whose job was changed. The five members voting against Dr. Gallien were the Moms for Liberty-backed members. In the days that followed, 71 district principals signed letters protesting the board’s decision, and local lawmakers from both parties asked the governor and state attorney general to investigate. The four board members who voted against Gallien’s suspension held a news conference asking for his reinstatement. In October, Superintendent Gallien filed a lawsuit against the district for breach of contract. The same five board members who originally voted for his suspension during the October 2023 board meeting repeated that action again. Last week, the board approved Gallien’s termination, accepting his proposal for severance.
Other school districts across the state have also felt the sting of the Moms for Liberty and other right-wing activist groups, particularly in their marginalization of LGBTQ students or in the teaching of racial history, and specifically demanding the banning of books that address these issues.
A new report from the American Library Association indicates that attempted book banning and restrictions in school and public libraries set a record in 2022, with more than 1200 challenges—nearly double the total from 2021. National Education Association President Becky Pringle says, “Every student, no matter their race or where they live, deserves the freedom to learn accurate history, and to see themselves reflected in the books they read.”
Judy Blume, the prolific author of children’s books such as Freckle Juice, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, and Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, offered: “Censorship grows out of fear, and because fear is contagious, some parents are easily swayed. Book banning satisfies their need to feel in control of their children‘s lives. This fear is often disguised as moral outrage. They want to believe if their children don’t read about it, their children won’t know about it. And if they don’t know about it, it won’t happen.”
1. Pickens County: The school board removed Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You from every classroom, library and media center for 5 years. They also restricted access to Dear Martin and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The ACLU-SC and the SC NAACP have sued to challenge this racially and politically motivated censorship.
2. Spartanburg County: At least 80 books have been challenged in Spartanburg in Districts 1-6. Spartanburg 6 removed Heartstopper Vol.2, (a comic book featuring a same-sex couple) from a middle school book fair. The public library system, copying Greenville County’s tactics, is working to ban any LGBTQ books from the children ‘s section.
3. York County: In 2021, Governor McMaster demanded censorship of Gender Queer from Fort Mill schools. The district complied. When the local library refused to purge LGBTQ-themed books from the children’s section, the county council removed 3 seats from the library board.
4. Kershaw County: In 2022, community members tried to ban a book of poetry, Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice. Parents, principals, and librarians defended the book and stopped this action.
5. Lexington County: The book-banning group PACE challenged books, including Bathe the Cat, a picture book about a multiracial family with 2 dads. At their request, 17 books were removed. A Chapin High teacher was ordered to stop teaching from a book about the Black experience in the United States, Between the World and Me. Some students had complained it made them feel “uncomfortable.”
6. Horry County: The district banned 12 books, including Go Ask Alice, This Book is Gay, and Gabi: A Girl in Pieces after the head of Moms for Liberty requested the purge.
7. Dorchester County: Even though activists tried to ban books from school libraries in 2023, including Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You, they have so far been unsuccessful. In April, responding to the onslaught of ban requests, the school board passed a policy that only parents and guardians of students in the district could challenge books.
8. Beaufort County: In the fall of 2022, a small group of pro-censorship activists challenged 97 books in the schools, including The Kite Runner, All Boys Aren’t Blue, and The Handmaid’s Tale. The review process is continuing.
9. Anderson County: In 2023, Moms for Liberty pressured Anderson I schools to ban several books, including The Handmaid’s Tale, and started a petition to “Clean Up South Carolina schools” by banning books.
10. Berkeley County: In November 2022, a Moms for Liberty majority won seats on the county school board and immediately passed a ban on Critical Race theory, fired the newly-elected district superintendent, appointed his runner-up in his place, and fired the board attorney. This past May, 93 books in the Berkeley County schools were challenged. The process of reviewing the books is ongoing, although most have been returned to the shelves.
11. Charleston County: In addition to placing the new superintendent on paid leave, the Moms for Liberty school board majority eliminated the district’s health curriculum committee. They have been compiling a list of books to ban, including And Tango Makes Three, a children’s book about two dad penguins raising a baby together. They have also sought to abolish the EL literacy curriculum.
Sources: ABC News Archives, ACLU-SC, The Post and Courier, The State Newspaper, and the Southern Poverty Law Center