Louisiana teacher sues conservative group after she was called a 'pedo' and a 'groomer' for opposing censorship in her local library

• A Louisiana teacher was vilified online after speaking against censorship at her local library.
• A number of LGBTQ+ themed books had been deemed "inappropriate" by a board member.

A Louisiana teacher-librarian is suing two men who accused her of pushing erotic materials on children after she spoke against censorship at a local library meeting.

Amanda Jones is taking the unusual step of legal action to confront what she describes as a conservative "playbook" that made her its target.

It began after she defended books, most with LGBTQ+ themes, from a charge that they are "inappropriate" at a public meeting where the contents of the library was discussed.

The move came amid a soaring number of challenges to what books go on library shelves — which most frequently target books with LGBTQ+ themes or which deal with race.

On July 19, Jones gave a speech at a meeting at the public library in Livingston Parish, decrying censorship in general. She is president of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians and is a well-known figure locally, having taught at the same school for 21 years.

The speech put her at the center of a storm that has seen her branded "evil" and a "pedo."

She is suing Michael Lunsford, founder of group called Citizens for a New Louisiana (CNL), and a local blogger named Ryan Thames, alleging defamation in both cases.

"I haven't really gone out in public since this because I'm nervous and scared," she told Insider. "I was petrified that somebody was going to be ugly to me."

She said she avoids even going out for groceries and orders them to be delivered instead.

"Inappropriate" books

At the July 19 meeting, Livingston Parish Library board member Erin Sandefur handed out a list of books and photocopies of pages from them.

She said that they had been brought to her attention by an "official" that she didn't name, and they were, she said, "inappropriate" for children and young adults.

The titles included: "Dating and Sex: A Guide for the 21st Century Teen Boy" by Andrew Smiler, which is aimed at teens; the comic book "Sex is a Funny Word," by Corey Silverberg and Fiona Smyth, which is aimed at kids aged eight-10; and "It Feels Good to Be Yourself: A Book About Gender Identity" by Theresa Thorn, aimed at kids aged four to eight.

Some pages honed in on the books' sexual content — one page headed "sexual activity do's and don'ts" includes advice on anal sex and "stimulating" various sexual body parts. Another has a character who is "both boy and girl." Still another discussed various sexual identities.

All are currently offered in their respective age-appropriate sections of Livingston's library. Sandefur insisted at the meeting that she didn't intend to censor anything, and that her objections had nothing to do with the LGBTQ+ themes of some of the books.

(Sandefur declined to be interviewed for this article, as did the chair and vice-chair of the board, Ronnie Bencaz and Kath DeGeneres.)

Jones didn't refer to any of those books in her speech, but spoke in general about her belief that the library should serve everyone's information needs, including under-represented communities. (The full speech can be read here.)

"No one portion of the community should dictate what the rest of the citizens have access to," she said.

She pointed out that decisions on what books to buy were made by professionals with decades of experience. "Dating and Sex," for example, is published by the American Psychological Association.

There is anyway an established process by which concerned library users can ask for a book's place to be reconsidered, and can appeal the decision, she added.

Also at the meeting was Lunsford, the local activist named in Jones's lawsuit. He seconds Sandefur's assessment of the books, and claimed — inaccurately — that they were shelved next to Nancy Drew books and and Dr Seuss' "The Cat in the Hat."

He said his agenda was nothing to do with censorship, and that he merely recommended moving the titles to another section. A couple of others agreed with him.

Conservatives "cleaning house"

Lunsford and CNL have had an outsize influence on Louisiana libraries already.

When Jones learned that Lunsford would be at the Livingston meeting, "it was obvious to me what the agenda was," she told Insider.

The group supported a successful campaign to effectively reduce the Lafayette library system's budget balance by $10 million (CNL's former incarnation was "Lafayette Citizens Against Taxes"). It also attempted to stop a drag queen storytelling event, a case that drew the ire of the ACLU.

Lunsford also takes credit for "cleaning house" at the library, where a new, highly conservative board moved in — and recently attempted to fire a librarian who included an LGBTQ+ section in a book display.

In an interview with Insider, Lunsford framed his fight as one against politicizing taxpayer money and favoring small government.

Referring to the debate in Livingston, he said: "This pornography and erotica we're finding in the kids' section is tied to a specific political agenda."

"And I just think that we shouldn't be using our tax dollars on this," he said.

He also said his ideological opponents "don't want to engage" on the actual content of the books. He accused the American Library Association of barely looking at the books it recommends — a charge the ALA rejected.

(The ALA told Insider that it closely follows collection development policies that take into account professional reviews, publisher information, and community needs.)

"So they get the list and they say, yeah, fine," he said. "And they just rubber stamp it. And the books come in and they put 'em on the shelf and they never even looked at, that's my opinion."

Several others at the meeting expressed similar sentiments to Jones. Two or three others shared Sandefur's concerns, or were open to having such content moved to a new section of the library. No particular decision was made.

Targeting Jones online and at her workplace

The following Saturday, Jones opened her Facebook account to see a post by CNL.

It showed a picture of Jones mid-speech, circled in red. Naming Jones as the president of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians, it asked: "Why is she fighting so hard to keep sexually erotic, and pornographic materials in the kid's section?"

"What kind of influence would she have over what your six-year-old kindergartener sees in your local SCHOOL's library?" the post asked.

CNL then filed several public-records requests with the school she works at, which Jones' lawsuit said was an attempt to ruin her reputation with her employer.

"It was not a great way to wake up that Saturday morning," Jones said.

Lunsford told Insider he did this out of concern for Jones' pupils, and that his actions are in line with CNL's role as a transparency organization.

Another Facebook page, called "Bayou State of Mind" and run by a blogger called Ryan Thames, shared a meme of Jones saying she advocated "teaching anal sex to 11-year-olds," which has since been deleted, according to the lawsuit.

Thames's lawyer, Joseph Long, said: "My client's concern is that graphic sexual material could be available for young children at the school libraries. He has nothing against people of color or the LGBTQ community.

"Eleven and 12 year old kids should be allowed to be kids and should not be dealing with this kind of graphic sexual information," Long said. "It's just common sense."

He alleged that Jones is suing Thames because "she couldn't tolerate an opposing view and is trying to chill his free speech."

Several other posts followed on both accounts, and between them attracted hundreds of comments — many of them in support of Jones. But others piled on, such as one thanking Lunsford for challenging the "pedo grooming community."

Another shared the CNL post saying: "Don't think the 'groomers and child predators aren't hard at work in our state and region. The pervs hold positions of power everywhere."

Another said: "This is pathetic ... why does she still have a JOB?"

"REALLY SERIOUSLY TRUE PERVERTED DISGUSTING EVIL," wrote another.

"Evil, pure evil," wrote one commenter to another CNL post about people "who push erotica."

An unprecedented era

Jones is not alone. According to the ALA, book challenges increased from 377 in 2019 to 729 in 2022. It attributes this to "attacks orchestrated by conservative parent groups and right-wing media."

Books with LGBTQ+ themes or non-white protagonists crowd out the list of most-challenged books every year.

Deborah Stone, the director of ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, told Insider: "I understand that some individuals perceive these books as erotica."

Moving them to the adult section of the library — as Lunsford and some others in Livingston had suggested — is still a form of censorship, she said, because it brands the material as shameful and puts it out of reach of its intended audience.

The position of the ALA is that parents should have the final say on guiding their child's reading — and that no one group should be dictating the "final, governing standard" of what everyone else has access to.

The description of age-appropriate library books as "pornography" and those who defend them as "groomers" is a familiar silencing tactic — and disingenuous, she said.

It's a "false framing" designed to associate LGBTQ+ people with pedophilia, she said, and it's an approach that is growing more prevalent.

Both Lunsford, and Thames via his lawyer, rejected that assertion.

For Jones, it was time to fight back. She crowdfunded $20,000 to support her legal effort, telling Insider: "I've built up a really solid reputation as a good educator and these people are coming in and they're just destroying it.

"I'm tired of it. I'm just tired of it," she said. "I'm scared to death. But somebody has to speak up."