FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — A former Wyoming library director who was fired amid an uproar over books with sexual content and LGBTQ+ themes that some people complained were inappropriate for youth and who requested they be removed from youth shelves will be paid $700,000 after settling a lawsuit.
Terri Lesley was fired as director of the library system in Campbell County, northeastern Wyoming, in 2023, two years after the book dispute at the Gillette library. Lesley sued last spring over her firing and reached a settlement with county officials on Wednesday.
“I feel vindicated. It’s been a difficult road, but I will never regret standing up for the First Amendment,” Lesley said.
Campbell County, a major coal mining area in the western high plains, is among the most conservative areas in one of the most conservative states.
Public officials there sided with book objectors and violated Lesley’s First Amendment rights, Lesley claimed in her federal lawsuit against Campbell County, including her commission and the library board.
The county denied Lesley’s claims. Only Lesley’s performance, not the dispute over the books, influenced her firing, the county argued in court papers.
A private attorney hired by the county for the lawsuit, Patrick Holscher, and County Attorney Nathan Henkes did not immediately return phone messages seeking comment Wednesday.
The books challenged at Gillette included “This Book is Gay” by Juno Dawson, “How to Make a Baby” by Anna Fiske, “Doing It” by Hannah Witton, “Sex is a Funny Word” by Corey Silverberg and “Dating and Sex: A Guide for the 21st Century Teenager” by Andrew P. Smiler.
“We hope it at least sends a message to other library districts, other states, other counties, that the First Amendment is alive and strong and that our anti-discrimination values are also still alive and strong,” said Lesley’s attorney, Iris Halpern. “These are public entities, they are government officials, they must take into account their constitutional obligations.”
Halpern and his firm, Rathod Mohamedbhai in Denver, have supported laid-off library employees elsewhere in recent years. Under the settlement agreement, Lesley will drop her lawsuit, although a separate lawsuit she filed against three people who challenged the books will continue.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency charged with enforcing anti-discrimination laws, allowed the lawsuit to be filed against county officials based on an earlier EEOC complaint filed by Lesley.