KETK reports former librarian Ashley Taylor says she was retaliated against for protected speech and targeted by false attacks from an outside advocacy group. She argues city of Tyler officials violated her First Amendment rights and allowed Grassroots America — We the People (GRA) to interfere with her employment through, what she describes, as defamatory public campaigns.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Other defendants include a city employee and a current city councilman.
Meanwhile, KLTV reports Taylor, who was also the director of the Tyler Public Library, claims she was retaliated against for a sign an employee posted that read: "A truly great library has something in it to offend everyone." The sign was posted without Taylor's permission, according to the complaint filed in federal court.
The attorney representing Grassroots America — We The People calls the lawsuit "frivolous."
According to CBS19, Taylor was fired due to discussing, without proper authorization, a third-party investigation into the sign.
Christin Bentley, a Texas Senate Republican Executive Committee member, says that the issue didn't begin with politics. It began with parents in 2022 but was brought to the forefront due to a Tyler mayoral election.
"Parents across the country started to see that there was explicit content in their school libraries. Out here in Tyler, there was a group that had been looking,” Bentley says.
Bentley explains that this group found really explicit and inappropriate books in the children’s section of the public library.
“And when we talk about sexually explicit, we don't mean that, in these books, there is something sexual that is being implied. We are talking about graphic, leaving nothing to your imagination," Bentley states.
She says Grassroots America was working behind-the-scenes with the city initially to get them to call a meeting for public testimony, but that didn't happen.
"By the way, they weren't ever asking to remove books entirely. The main thing they were asking for is that it just get moved to the appropriate sections," Bentley states.
She says the books eventually got moved out of the children's section.
Furthermore, Bentley encourages parents to go to their local library to see what books are in it and get inappropriate material moved out of the children's section.
