by Dr. Anne Mulhern

Bill H.3594 (An Act Regarding Free Expression) begins with a set of stated principles or purposes. The second principle jumped out at me, so I’ll quote it here:

“(ii) librarians should be protected from personal attacks and threats directed at them due to work performed in good faith within their role and position;”

I happen to agree with that principle, strongly. My only objection to that principle as it is stated is that it should be extended to all library staff. Many of the people who work in a library are not librarians, that is, persons with formal library training, but library staff members who do the public-facing tasks of checking out books to patrons, registering new patrons, etc. They should no more be subjected to harassment than the credentialed librarians.

Readers of InsideLowell may remember an incident last year when a scheduled talk put on by the Tewksbury public library about sex differences in sports was abruptly canceled due to bullying and harassment of the library staff. The talk was subsequently reinstated due to the vigorous action of Tewksbury residents, and, I suspect, some threat of legal action.

This occurrence follows the same pattern as an incident that occurred about a year earlier. In this case, a local church group had reserved the Chelmsford public library’s meeting room for a scheduled event. The reservation was subsequently canceled by the library, on a specious pretext. Later, however, the group’s permission to use the library’s meeting room was restored. The threat of legal action in this case is documented.As far as I am aware, the MBLC (Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners) which is the state organization generally responsible for assisting and controlling the public libraries in Massachusetts, has failed to take any notice whatsoever of either incident, far less to condemn the bullying the library staff were, undoubtedly, in both cases, subjected to. I believe that this is because the MBLC’s political sympathies are aligned with those of the bullies and harassers and their concern for the welfare of the library staff is not enough to counteract their political ideology.

So is there anything in this proposed bill that would help prevent the kind of intimidation and bullying of library staff that occurred in these two incidents?

The bill has acquired a large number of legislative sponsors, including Tara T. Hong, who was recently elected representative for the 18^th Middlesex district, which covers about 1/3 of Lowell.

I assume that the MBLC will continue with its unstated policy of giving no support to libraries or librarians that offend left-wing sensibilities by their purchases or programs. This seems reasonable because:

• That is how the MBLC has behaved in the past
• It is a well-documented and more-or-less consistent behavior of library organizations

Will this bill at least give librarians more confidence that they will not be punished for adhering to basic principles of library neutrality if they are suddenly caught between a vigorous cancel mob and a pusillanimous or ideologically captured board as happened to Cathy Simpson, formerly CEO of the public library of Niagara-on-the-Lake in Canada?

Well, I searched diligently through the long list of proposed changes in this bill to find anything relevant to this problem and I think I may have found something. The bill proposes to change the wording of Section 33 of Chapter 78 (Policy for selection and use of library materials and facilities) by striking out the simple phrase “be dismissed” and adding the words in bold:

“The board of trustees of a free public library in any city or town, or in the absence of such board, the city or town official possessing the appointive powers of such board, shall establish a written policy for the selection of library materials and the use of materials and facilities in accordance with standards adopted by the American Library Association. No employee shall be dismissed lose librarian licensure or certification or be dismissed, disciplined, placed on probation, involuntarily transferred, fined or imprisoned for the selection of library materials when the selection is made in good faith and in accordance with the approved policy adopted pursuant to the provisions of this section.”

Does it strike you that the wording is a bit over the top? “Fined” or “imprisoned” seems like a little much to worry about. But I think I know the reason why those words are there. There is another bill, Bill H.2042 (An Act Relative to Child Protection), about which I have written elsewhere, which I wholeheartedly support. Unlike H.3594, which was proposed by legislators, H.2042 is a citizens’s bill. Also, unlike the prolix H.3594, H.2042 is a paragon of simplicity; it merely removes a single sentence from the law. That sentence is one which gives librarians and teachers the privilege of being exempt from criminal prosecution for providing material that the state considers “harmful to minors” to said minors, if they provided that material in their working capacity as teachers or library workers. If passed, Bill H.2042 would remove that special exemption.

As I point out in the linked article, the Massachusetts legal definition of “harmful to minors” is actually quite strict. Material is only to be considered “harmful to minors” if that is the prevailing opinion in the county where the library is located. “Prevailing opinion” means more than just that the majority believe it is harmful to minors; “prevailing opinion” means that everybody in the county holds that opinion except some local oddities. The consequence of our political polarization is that there is almost no “prevailing opinion” on these issues. So, while I applaud Bill H.2042 and the citizens who courageously worked through the legislative process to bring it thus far, and I earnestly hope that it will be passed, I think that if passed it will have no real effect on the lives of library workers.

Do the additional words in H.3594 about being fined or imprisoned do any harm? Yes, I think they do. In the United States, only people who have committed a crime are sentenced to prison or fined. This bill seeks to alter Chapter 78, which is about libraries, to try to slip in an alteration to the criminal code. That seems to me to be plain bad law. Have the legislators checked with the Massachusetts Supreme Court to verify that this sneaky bit of text will be judged legal if the bill is passed? They are entitled to do this, and probably should.

If it weren’t for the weird excursion into criminal law I would support this change in the bill, since I think it will give librarians and library staff the additional courage needed to do their duty by their own communities in a few more circumstances. Judging by what happened in Tewksbury and Chelmsford, they need all the help they can get.