During state budget negotiations last week, Missouri House Republicans vote to defund all public libraries of the country. As the proposal moves to the Missouri Senate, public librarians are concerned about how the draconian measure will harm the communities they serve.
The effort to defund public libraries really began with Senate Bill 775, legislation intended to give more rights to survivors of sexual assault.
Republican state senator Rick Brattin hijacked the bill and including amendments which prohibits educators from “providing sexually explicit material” to students. Like many proposals are the same, the wording is broad and vague. The bill became law, and just a few months later, conservative parents began using it to target LGBTQ-themed books, labeling books about gender or sexual identity as “pornography.”
The new law led to 300 books were removed from schools across the country between last August and November, according to PEN America.
In February, the ACLU of Missouri, the Missouri Association of School Librarians and the Missouri Library Association file a lawsuit against the state, arguing that the ban violates the First Amendment.
Republicans decided to retaliate against MLA, a nonprofit organization of professional librarians, for joining the lawsuit. His proposal: cut the $4.5 million allocated to public libraries each year.
“I don’t think we should subsidize that effort,” Republican House Budget Chairman Cody Smith said said. “We’ll take the funding and that’s why.”
But none of the professional organizations named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit received state aid, which went directly to the library, and the ACLU of Missouri paid the suit.
“They chose to punish librarians for exercising their right to question government,” Katie Hill Earnhart, executive director of the Cape Girardeau Public Library, told HuffPost.
“There’s job assistance, access to computers, passport applications, free tax assistance, a heating and cooling center for the homeless. We do more than just check the books.”
– Otter Bowman, president of the Missouri Library Association
The book has become conservative ire targets over the last few years. As racial justice protests sweep the country following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Republicans are stoking fears among white parents about what their children are learning about race in the classroom. Over the past few months, conservative attention has shifted to books with LGBTQ characters and themes.
Missouri state government is constitutionally required to provide aid to public libraries, so it’s unlikely that Republicans will be able to eliminate all funding. But librarians are still worried that drastic cuts will continue that will require some libraries to reduce services or close their doors.
“I think it’s more of a political statement to completely zero out, but there is a true fear that will still be cut,” Otter Bowman, president of the Missouri Library Association, told HuffPost. “There’s a greater sense of urgency that this can become a reality.”
The amount of funding each library receives from the state varies, but no library will be immune from defunding or drastic cuts.
“My library will receive about $26,000, which is about 20% of the purchase budget,” Earnhart said. “We have to find surplus funds somewhere … or we have to reduce the amount of things we can buy.”
Earnhart said his library is lucky to have another source of funding – if the state pulls its funding, it doesn’t have to close its doors. Rural libraries will not be so lucky.
“They don’t have the tax base that the city does,” Bowman said. “Rural libraries need to cut hours, and staff and collections – which are already in short supply.”
Libraries in these areas are often community centers that offer a variety of resources to residents – not just “wake up” children’s books, as conservatives tend to argue.
“There’s job assistance, access to computers, passport applications, free tax assistance, a heating and cooling center for the homeless. We do more than just check the books,” Bowman said.
Bowman said he is concerned about the long-term impact of anti-library policies: Rush to pass new laws Limiting what materials librarians can provide to customers has led to a decline in the population who even want to join the profession.
“We like to serve people and obviously we don’t make money, but offensively we have a hard time keeping people,” he said.
It’s unclear how the Republican-controlled Senate will vote on the budget. In the past, such extreme bills were considered wishful thinking for right-wing legislators. But in recent months, the culture war has become a top priority for Republican lawmakers — defunding the entire public library system is now a top proposal.
Across the country, librarians are ready for whatever comes next.
“If we’re going to be cut,” Bowman said, “we’re not going to go quietly.”