Judge Says Ousted Gillette’s Librarian’s Discrimination Lawsuit Can Go Forward

Half of the accusations a former Campbell County Public Library director has leveled against a family that accused her of “grooming” local children are based on enough good logic to survive the next court phases, a federal judge ruled Friday.

Terri Lesley, who directed the Campbell County Public Library system until the library board fired her in July 2023, sued a local family — Hugh, Susan and Kevin Bennett — later that summer in the U.S. District Court for Wyoming.

Half her claims, such as “injurious falsehood,” didn’t link her allegations with the proper laws; but the other half of her claims deserve an exchange of evidence and the chance to go before a jury, U.S. District Court Judge Alan B. Johnson ruled in an order he signed Thursday and filed Friday in the federal court.

Lesley’s long and public war with the Bennett family started in June 2021, when the library advertised “Pride and Rainbow Book Month” and LGTBQ-related books for teens to access, according to court documents in the case.

The Bennetts “began a campaign to publicly discredit” Lesley and push her to remove books with LGBTQ content from the library, wrote Johnson in his order.

They described Pride month as “immoral” and part of “the ground game of an attempt to destroy our culture and country,” the order adds.

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