Rhea Young, a career librarian for over twenty years, found out her job was on the line two weeks ago when she read the Montgomery County Commissioners Court agenda.
Montgomery Co. leaders fire library director after conservative letter campaign
Young was blindsided by the move to abruptly end her employment as the Montgomery County Memorial Library System Director, but she knew a likely reason why her time at the helm of the system was drawing to a close—a group of conservative, Christian community members’ influence on public library operations.
After asking Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough why she’d been fired, Young said she was told the library was going in a “different direction.”
“I asked [Keough] why, and I was told I knew why,” Young told Chron. “It was just reiterated that it was in the best interest of the county to terminate my employment effective immediately.”
In a statement Keough has since released about the matter, he wrote it was “vital” to find a library director who shares the “values of the people of [Montgomery] County.” Notably, Young grew up in the county.
“I didn’t follow the playbook of the group,” Young said.
The group Two Moms and Some Books, led by homeschool mother turned “age-appropriate book” activist Michele Nuckolls, touts the catchphrase “Make Libraries Great Again.” It mobilizes other Montgomery County residents to call for crackdowns on books they deem inappropriate and the inclusion of more conservative, Christian content on public library shelves. The number one target is librarians, some of which Nuckolls has claimed are “groomerbrarians,” exposing children to explicit content.
Nuckolls takes to her blog and social media platforms to call on her roughly 600 followers (out of Montgomery County’s more than 700,000 residents) to represent the community and speak out against what she deems inappropriate material on library shelves while donning red at commissioners court meetings.
Through the group’s efforts, titles from Brave Books, a conservative book publisher based in Conroe, have been put on the shelves of the children’s section. Young accepted the donations of conservative literature after being asked to purchase them with county funds despite the titles not meeting collection development policy standards, such as being unable to find positive reviews from professional journals of the books. She said this decision alone was a “stretch.”
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