Supporters of RCLS and Luanne James at March 30 board meeting Courtesy of Keri Lambert

After refusing to comply with the library board’s decision to remove 132 books from the children’s section of the Rutherford County Library System (RCLS), TN, former Director Luanne James has been fired. The library board voted 8–3 to terminate James at a special board meeting on March 30.

RCLS Board Chair Cody York and board member Beth Duffield had compiled the list of books, which contained LGBTQIA+ content, after a March 16 vote to move materials from the library’s juvenile shelves to the adult section. The move was necessary, according to York, to protect children from “gender confusion.” (That board decision was split along the same lines as James’s termination would be, with board members Lynn Reynolds, Allison Belt, and Angela Frederick opposing both.)

James emailed the board on March 18 stating that she refused to move the books, as doing so “would compromise my professional obligation to oppose government-mandated viewpoint discrimination,” and she was “professionally and ethically bound to uphold the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.” The vote to relocate the titles was held without following the library’s Request for Reconsideration policy, she noted, and represented “a clear act of viewpoint discrimination.”

More than 240 people attended Monday’s meeting, and most applauded James’s stand and booed the board majority that voted to fire her. Eight of the 10 public comment speakers spoke in favor of James as well.

Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, stated, “With a firm: ‘I will not comply,’ Luanne demonstrated her deep commitment to the freedom to read and the principles of librarianship, at a steep cost. Her story will echo from the Courthouse in Murfreesboro, TN, across the county, as emblematic of the fight against censorship and suppression.”

A DIRECTOR UNDER FIRE

RCLS found itself in the public eye last year after Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett called on the Stones River Regional Library System to review all materials in its children’s sections to “identify any materials that may be inconsistent with Tennessee age-appropriateness laws, in violation of any federal law” in accordance with President Trump’s Executive Order 14168, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” Many of the books in question had LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC themes and authors.

At a packed board meeting on December 1, James took the stand after first requesting whistleblower status. She then alleged that, at a closed-door meeting on her second day in the role last summer, York had instructed her to remove books from the collection. She also alleged that York had requested she hand over private data about library patrons, including their names, home addresses, and checkout histories, which she had refused to do.

York denied James’s assertion, stating that he had only pointed out the books to James, and that she had acted inappropriately by removing them on her own; and that he had asked for patron information because he was trying to track down out-of-town use of RCLS library cards. Neither of them had recordings of the meeting beyond James’s written notes. Board member Belt motioned to remove York as board chair, which failed in a 2–7 roll call vote.

RCLS ultimately identified more than 2,700 titles for potential relocation. According to the Daily News Journal, “books on slavery, racism and the Holocaust were among the flagged books, as well as four Anne Frank biographies, more than 30 books focused on the Bible, five books on women’s history and suffrage, and numerous books on ancient civilizations”—plus books that included a naked Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, a discussion of a teen girl getting her period, and “unclothed anthropomorphic animals.”

Following the March 16 decision to move the books, multiple local and national experts, including the past president of the American Academy of Pediatricians, wrote the board to explain that making these titles available to young people could potentially protect them from abuse and save lives, but their letters did not sway the board majority.

#STANDWITHLUANNE

York declined to comment on the board’s decision to fire James, but issued a statement in mid-March on receipt of her email. “The Executive Director’s refusal to implement a lawful directive of the Rutherford County Library Board constitutes insubordination,” he said. “The Board has the authority and responsibility to establish policy for the library system. When a Director refuses to carry out a duly adopted Board decision, it undermines the governance of the institution and cannot be ignored.”

But Keri Lambert, vice president of the Rutherford County Library Alliance—a nonprofit that supports county libraries and librarians—saw an outpouring of support after James announced that she would not comply with the board’s decision. “There’s a lot of ‘I want to be Luanne when I grow up.’ ‘She is a true hero.’ ‘She is a patriot.’ There’s a hashtag, #standwithLuanne, that’s going around,” she told LJ.

The search for a new director has not yet been announced. It may take some time, noted Lambert. When the previous director, Rita Shacklett, retired in 2024, Deiters & Todd Library Consulting was hired to pursue a replacement. But after the board voted to “remove material that promotes, encourages, advocates for or normalizes transgenderism or ‘gender confusion’ in minors” in early 2025, “Dieters & Todd stepped away from the search because of recent actions taken by the board,” partner Jim Deiters told the Daily News Journal. James was hired that August.

“Librarians should not be used as a filter for political agendas. I stood up for the right to read, standing for the citizens of Rutherford County. I believe my firing is an unlawful act of viewpoint discrimination,” James said in a statement through her attorney. “This action hurts library patrons, not just the librarian.”

“Luanne is standing up for all of our democratic freedoms by refusing to comply,” said Lambert. “York's orders to move books is unlawful and unconstitutional.”

And, she added, “our libraries are funded by and for us, so we have the right to access information free from government interference.”