Some Klamath County library programming has been canceled after a resident complained about a social justice book club that featured the book, “No More Police: A Case for Abolition,” the Herald and News reported.
At a May meeting, the Klamath County Board of Commissioners instructed the library to ensure programming didn’t create a perception of endorsing or sponsoring a political position. As a result, library officials canceled programming that could be construed as political, including the book club and another program, Great Decisions, that has run for decades without conflict.
Library officials say they are concerned about the future of other educational and civic events. Some residents also worry about the precedent the decision sets for suppressing other speech. We learn more about the issue from Klamath County commissioner Kelley Minty; Charla Oppenlander, the assistant library director of the Klamath County Library Service District; and Lois Taysom, a member of the Klamath County Library advisory board.
Note: The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. We start today in Klamath County. A library book club there was canceled earlier this month after a resident complained about one of its featured books. The book in question argued for abolishing police. As the Herald and News reported, the county commission instructed the library to cancel the club. Now, library officials and some residents say they’re worried about the precedent this sets for other library programming. We’re gonna get three perspectives on this now. Kelley Minty is a Klamath County Commissioner, Charla Oppenlander is the assistant library director for the Klamath County Library Service District and Lois Taysom is a member of the Klamath County Library advisory board. Welcome to Think Out Loud.
Charla Oppenlander: Thank you.
Kelley Minty: Thank you.
Lois Taysom: Thanks.
Miller: Charla Oppenlander, first. What was the library Social Justice Book Club?
Oppenlander: It was a monthly group that met at the library. We picked a book every month to focus on that would stimulate discussion about current social justice issues. We had read books like “Evicted” by Matthew Desmond, “The Color of Law” by Richard Ross and some others. And the group would read, they would read the group ahead of time and then, oh, excuse me, read the book ahead of time and then come to the group to have a discussion about the topics that were introduced.
Miller: How many people have been taking part?
Oppenlander: I would say monthly, we probably had an average between five and eight people.
Miller: And the book for April was called “No More Police. A Case For Abolition.” When did you first hear about pushback from members of the community?
Oppenlander: We received notification from the commissioners on the, I think it was the 18th or 19th of April. The club, the group met on the 18th of April. So it was just after the group had met that we were contacted by the commissioners and told to cancel it from then on out.
Miller: That was the first you’d heard?
Oppenlander: Well, the person who we did talk to, I talked to one person on the phone on the 18th or 19th [of April], who had asked some questions about it and gave some indications that he was upset about it, but that was the last that we heard.
Miller: Kelley Minty, at what point did the county commission get involved?
Minty: I believe that a board member was contacted by some concerned individuals, and then it got on my radar, as I am liaison to the library and it was asked, well, what do you know about this? And I directed the concerned commissioner to speak directly with the director of the library as she would be best suited to answer the sort of questions related to ‘Are we sponsoring this? Is this just an event that happens to happen at the library? Who’s paying for it?’ I did not know the answers to those questions, but I knew our highly professional and very well qualified library director would have the answers to that.
Miller: Can you give us a sense for the concerns that you heard from the resident or residents?
Minty: I was not contacted directly by citizens who were concerned about the book. I want to draw a distinction because I think this is getting lost in the conversation oftentimes. As it was brought to the board by a concerned board member, the initial major concern was whether it was appropriate for a taxpayer-funded library staff person to be shaping and moderating these discussions. It wasn’t a question of, should we have this book club? Should the book club not be allowed, who’s allowed to be in the library, who’s not? Really the question that was being asked is if a library staff person is running the discussion, selecting the book and a perception of sponsoring the event, is that appropriate? I do want to be clear that that was really the issue that came to the board.
Miller: And my understanding is that the board had a pretty clear answer to that, which is that it is not appropriate to have a library employee moderate this discussion. And so the library should stop doing that. And just so we’re clear, that is the decision that the commission came to, right?
Minty: Well, again, for clarity, because these things are very nuanced. So you have a board of three independent elected officials, and as I’ve said many times, we probably all said and think about things differently. So to say it was sort of one fell swoop decision is not really accurate. The issue that came before the board on May 3rd, in a meeting with our legal counsel, that also included the library director and the assistant director, was centered around, is it appropriate for the staff member person? I think it’s fair to characterize the guidance from legal counsel, as it’s a gray area and that is just the reality legally.
There’s an argument to be made of sort of, if you’re gonna have the library open to these book clubs, then everyone should be able to have one and I won’t speak for the library even though I’m their liaison, but I believe that they indicated in that meeting that they like the idea of being able to, for lack of a better word, kind of control the situation. And there’s logistical reasons for that too of checking out a room. And I mean, it’s very understandable why the library wants to have some control over it, and run the program, and it was being questioned by some board members, but is that appropriate for the library, again, paid staff to be running the program?
Miller: Lois Taysom, what went through your mind when you heard about the county commission’s decision?
Taysom: That they hadn’t really looked at the board policy and they hadn’t asked the advisory board why after months of consideration, we had the policy that we had and it has to do with liability and not having political speech in the library space. There’s a great distinction between an intellectual discussion and a group that is not moderated, becoming political and turning it into, well, we’re going to get some kind of a measure going. And because of our moderation by trained staff, we’re able to say those discussions stay within the bounds that should happen in that taxpayer paid for space. If we can’t control that, we really can’t have discussions on anything political, which is anything that anybody decides is political. And that has been an issue that has gone back and forth between the commissioners and members of the advisory board and others: what do you define as political? And it can be absolutely anything somebody complains about. So there’s a reason for having the policy and that wasn’t understood. In fact, one of the commissioners had never ever read any of the advisory board reports. And that was very disturbing to me.
Miller: In a sense, it seems like you’re saying, Lois Taysom, that there is a slippery slope here that you’re worried about. What’s an example of another activity or book club or moderated program at the library that you think could also be canceled or under threat because of the commission’s decision?
Taysom: The Battle of the Books, which is provided by Oregon, it’s an Oregon State thing that is geared toward children, addresses some difficult topics.
Miller: That this is something that probably many parents listening now would be familiar with where there’s a whole list of books and their kids can read a bunch of them and then there’s sort of a competition based on that. So how might that be put in jeopardy?
Taysom: Well, if it’s something that bothers somebody and they can complain about it and say it’s political, it can be canceled. In fact, it was specifically discussed and we couldn’t get a definitive answer. We also have Great Decisions at the library and we’ve run that for 20 years and there’s no question that that veers into what people would call political and if you can’t have that, it’s canceled.
Miller: Kelley Minty, I want to give you a chance to respond to these two examples. The Battle of the Books or Great Decisions. That’s a longstanding program for adults to talk about international or big national questions. Do you agree that those two could be considered political and could be forced to stop for the same reasoning?
Minty: It is getting lost and misconstrued as to what the direction was. The direction was, is it appropriate for staff to be staffing these things? Not that these things needed to be canceled. Even in the original meeting, the majority of the board did not say, and in fact, I believe it was said, you don’t have to cancel the book club, just don’t have library staff be the one staffing it. So to suggest that these things have to be canceled because they may or may not be perceived as being political is not accurate in terms of what the direction from the board was.
The direction from the board was that that there needs to be some attention paid to who is staffing/sponsoring the event, if it does veer into political territory. And a suggestion that I’ve offered to the Library Advisory Council that I think is a really good alternative is to. . . and I believe in the professionalism of our library staff, but I also believe that volunteers could do a really good job of moderating some of these things, allowing these activities to continue at the library because I think they’re valuable, while taking away the concerns related to paid staff influencing and running these.
Miller: So Charla Oppenlander, what’s wrong with that compromise as put forward by Commissioner Minty? You could have Great Discussions, you could have Battle of Books. You could have the social justice book club, but not moderated or managed by paid staff, but instead volunteers?
Oppenlander: The problem is that it would be a library program which means that it’s advertised for by the library, it’s on our calendar, it’s promoted by the library, yet we’re relinquishing our control to someone that’s not a trained librarian. And really, we, in the end [are] responsible for what happened in that room without a library staff member present.
Can I say something quickly just about what Commissioner Minty said? I believe that Natalie, the director and I, left the May 3rd meeting, understanding that the library was to no longer schedule programs that had political ideas or themes or the perception of that. We left that meeting with that direction from the commissioners. And I think that directive is what started this process because they were unable to define for us what types of programs those would be, what exactly that meant. It just kind of gave us marching orders to return to the library and follow that direction.
Miller: Even if they were managed by volunteers, which is an idea you don’t like, but you’re saying you were given the directive to cancel any potentially political programs, even if they weren’t staffed by staff?
Oppenlander: Yes, at that point, we were told to cancel and not schedule. A volunteer idea has been floated, but not with any really concrete plans or structure for that to happen.
Miller: Commissioner Minty, is there some confusion then about the outcome of that meeting?
Minty: I think there absolutely is confusion and I think it’s, because for two reasons:
one is probably first and foremost, as I mentioned in the beginning of the program, you have three - and this is sort of like the beauty and the challenge of a board versus maybe just like a CEO, one person. You had three people with different opinions, sharing different thoughts, different ideas. And I understand why it would be a challenge for library staff to be sort of in the moment, trying to build those three directions and opinions together and decide OK, well, what’s really being said here by the majority of the board? So that’s one reason. And then another reason is there was a very strong level of humanity in that meeting, in that there were emotions running high for everyone.
Oppenlander: I would like to disagree with that a little bit. Derrick DeGroot, Commissioner DeGroot is the chair of the committee, and we were given orders, in no uncertain terms, of what was to happen. I don’t remember Commissioner Minty expressing much opinion, other than her support for the library and her idea about having volunteer staff. I don’t remember the County Council offering any opinion about the claim that we could not moderate these discussions at the library. We left that meeting and came back and started looking at our programs deciding what kinds of things we could continue to schedule.
Miller: Kelley Minty, could you offer the clarity you have in your understanding of what is political and what isn’t, because separate from the question of whether it’s staff or not, it seems like that too is a big question that can be muddy?
Minty: Oh, absolutely. I, just like anyone else on this program, probably anyone listening, I’m not sure if I have the most perfect definition of what’s political and what’s not. There’s that old expression and I don’t wanna use it in its entirety but about, like, I’m not really sure, but I know it when I see it. I think some people could argue that. I think that’s why, for me, the cleanest way to sort of get to problem solving. And that’s for me, that’s what I feel like the point we’re at now, is we need to get to problem solving. We could debate this, or folks, I don’t care to debate it. I want us to solve the problem of how do we continue good programming in the library, while ensuring that we don’t get library staff or paid staff in trouble in their roles as public officials, getting into a muddy area around politics? So, I think the cleanest way to do that is to say, we have volunteers run those programs. But in terms of what is the right line? I don’t think I get to make the call on that. I’m just one person.
Oppenlander: But the commissioners do get to make the call. That’s the problem.
Minty: And it’s a three person board and that’s why . . . and to say that the chair directed it one way, it may have been unclear in the meeting, but it is still a three person board.
Miller: Right, so, it’s two members of the board that make up the majority. Just briefly, Lois Taysom, I just want to go back to you. In the biggest picture, what role should the library play in Klamath County?
Taysom: The library’s mission is largely educational and to make available educational and entertainment and just general life enriching experiences to the people of the county. They voted in a majority election, a supermajority election, where a majority of the people had to vote for it and a majority of the people had to vote that they wanted to fund the library as its own tax special district, in order to make sure that they would have libraries. That’s how much the people in Klamath County valued that. And if you know Klamath County, it’s tough to get anybody to fund anything, but they valued the library. They value having branches, they value having programs of book clubs and craft times and summer reading programs. And when you don’t know whether something is going to be a problem, it is hard to schedule.
Miller: Lois Taysom, Charla Oppenlander and Kelley Minty, thanks very much.
Minty: Thank you.
Oppenlander: Thank you.
Miller: Lois Taysom is a member of the Klamath County Library advisory board. Charla Oppenlander is the assistant library director and Kelley Minty is a member of the county commission.
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