On Thursday, March 20, the Alabama Public Library Service Board of Trustees (APLS) voted to defund the Fairhope Public Library (FPL). APLS Chairman John Wahl stated that the library was violating state policies related to protecting children from “inappropriate” material in the library.
Wahl, who was appointed Chair of the APLS in September 2024, is also the current chairman of the Alabama Republican Party. One of the Republican Party’s goals under Alabama Governor Kay Ivey over the last several years has been targeting library funding.
In 2024, Alabama updated its laws and administrative codes, permitting the APLS to withhold funds from libraries that do not have policies which remove or restrict “sexually explicit or other material deemed inappropriate” for minors. Like other states passing such bills, there is no clear definition of “sexually explicit” or “inappropriate.” This is intentional–it allows for interpretation at the will of whoever is in charge. It also undermines the prevailing standard for obscenity as defined by the Miller Test.
The Fairhope Public Library is the first public library in Alabama to lose their funding as a result of these new policies. While it has earned this unfortunate distinction, Fairhope is far from the first library to see local book censors champion defunding. A similar unsuccessful proposal was made for Athens Limestone Public Library in May last year.
Though most members of the APLS voted in favor of defunding the library at the meeting, there was one notable exception. Ron Snider, who represents the Fairhope district on the board, said the decision was highly inappropriate. His vote would echo what other leaders in the Fairhope community would say in the coming days: the APLS’s decision and demands do not reflect the will of the people.
APLS did not name the books it considers inappropriate that are available in the FPL collection. Several could be readily identified, though, based on public complaints to the APLS, including Sold by Patricia McCormick, Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson, and Tricks by Ellen Hopkins. All three books are written for teens and available in FPL’s teen section. These books are not the same ones challenged in the library back in April 2024 from a list compiled by Brian Dasinger, a member of the Baldwin County Conservative Coalition. Dasinger has been a staple at FPL board meetings as an advocate of banning books with topics he deems “inappropriate” for minors. The vast majority, as is the case in nearly every book ban situation nationwide, are by or about people of color and LGBTQ+ people.
Wahl noted that state law requires removal of the books out of youth areas in order to receive funding, insisting that such policy does not amount to book banning. These claims mirror those made by champions of book banning throughout the state of Alabama, including Clean Up Alabama and several local Moms For Liberty chapters.
Whether or not such a policy to move books falls under “banning” doesn’t matter. Relocating materials from where they belong in a library is book censorship by any and all definitions and goes against the ethical practices of libraries. All of this plays into the ongoing and pointless arguments made by book banners that what their goals are are simply to “curate” collections. What banners claim was limited to the public schools has clearly been anything but–the plan all along has been to re-define language and intent in order to take over public institutions.
On Monday, March 24, the Fairhope City Council met for the first time since the news of the APLS’s plan to defund the local library. Though the City Council has little control over the operations of FPL, they are the library’s primary funding source. All the Fairhope City Council members in attendance affirmed their support of the library and extended empathy to the library staff for the undue stress they are experiencing.
Wahl was in communication with Fairhope’s mayor, Sherry Sullivan, who is confident that the APLS and the library can find a compromise. But per Wahl’s own doubling down on the decision, that won’t happen until the books are relocated.
“We want to make it absolutely clear—non-compliance with APLS code is not an option. There are no gray areas, loopholes, or exceptions when it comes to keeping sexually explicit materials out of children’s sections,” he said in a statement issued Monday. “These are common-sense requirements that prevent innocent children from accidentally stumbling across sexually explicit material without their parents’ consent. Any library that refuses to move these books to the adult section will not receive state funding. Period.”
The City Council contributed $1.2 million to the Fairhope Public Library budget last year. The APLS cuts would amount to about $42,000–an amount that local pro-library, anti-book censorship advocates with Read Freely Alabama are hoping to raise to help keep the library open. The group has been on the ground defending Fairhope Public Library from attacks from the beginning. In four days, they’ve already come close to meeting their fundraising goal, bringing in nearly $39,000 in donations.
That would help keep the library open at the same service level it is now for at least 18 months.
Fairhope Public Library has been a book censorship hotspot during this era of unprecedented attacks on democratic institutions like public libraries. Things ramped up in September 2023, when members of the group Faith, Family, Freedom Coalition of Baldwin County began to show up to City Council meetings with complaints over the books available on the library’s shelves. These complaints were paired with calls to withhold funding until said titles were removed.
By October 2024, the library implemented a new policy that requires parental permission for anyone under 18 to borrow books from certain areas of the library. But this move wasn’t enough for the far-right groups who are obsessed with gender and sexuality. The Baldwin County chapter of Moms For Liberty took aim at the library’s board, and alongside Clean Up Alabama, have pushed to see the board chair fired for not moving books they have deemed “inappropriate.” Despite those complaints, three members of the library’s board who have worked hard to ensure equitable access to books were reappointed earlier this year. Clean Up Alabama then called for the City Council to withhold $225,000 in funding to the library until the books were removed.
It is very likely that because these far-right special interest groups did not get their way that they saw their opportunity by going straight to the APLS. This has been a pattern happening nationwide–when individuals don’t get their way in terms of banning materials locally, they go up the chain as far as they can. This is why Samuels Public Library in Virginia is still under attack several years on–the handful of church members who didn’t get their way with the library board have managed to get the county to create its own governing board in order to exert power–and it’s why parents like Elizabeth Szalai, who challenged dozens of books without success in Beaufort County Schools (SC) has now simply taken her complaints to the South Carolina Department of Education.
The Fairhope Public Library board won’t meet again until April 21, leaving questions about what will or won’t happen to the library and its funding. One thing is clear though, and that’s that the vast majority of the people in Fairhope, as well as its own leadership at the city and institutional level, do not agree with the decisions being made on their behalf by APLS.