Mediation underway in librarian lawsuit
Former Kingsland librarian Suzette Baker (second from right) received the first-ever Champion of Writers Award from the Authors Guild Foundation along with three other recipients in May 2024. Baker filed a civil lawsuit against Llano County for wrongful termination. Photo courtesy of Authors Guild Foundation/Beowulf Sheehan
Both sides of a civil lawsuit filed by a fired Kingsland librarian have presented settlement offers and are taking the case into mediation. The plaintiff and the defendants, which include Llano County officials, also declined to have a magistrate judge seat a jury if the case goes to trial.
Attorneys in Barbara Suzette Baker vs. Llano County et al. met a deadline of Oct. 25 to exchange offers and move into mediation if both sides deem it possible. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman set a date of June 27, 2025, which is the end of discovery, for a possible settlement. The case can be settled anytime, including right up through the trial, which is set to begin on Nov. 3, 2025.
“The signatories of this pleading are of the opinion that alternative dispute resolution will be appropriate once preliminary discovery is completed,” reads a Joint Report on Alternative Dispute Resolution filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division, on the deadline day. The report is signed by legal counsel from both sides.
Suzette Baker, the former head librarian of the Kingsland Branch Library, filed a wrongful termination suit against Llano County on March 4 of this year. She was fired from her job on March 9, 2022. She also filed a wrongful termination complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Sept. 6, 2022. That complaint remains under investigation.
Baker seeks back pay, attorney’s fees, and an injunction ordering Llano County to stop any behavior that suppresses First Amendment rights or discriminates against minorities. Her suit claims she was fired for disagreeing with the removal of 17 books, some of which focused on LGBTQ+ and racial issues.
The county and the same defendants in Baker’s civil suit are involved in another suit, Leila Little et al. vs. Llano County et al., over removing those books. An appeal of a preliminary injunction issued by the U.S. District Court in Austin to return the books to library shelves and the online catalog is on appeal before the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which heard arguments on Sept. 24.
The books in question are:
- “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson
- “They Called Themselves the K.K.K: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
- “Spinning” by Tillie Walden
- “Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen” by Jazz Jennings
- “Shine” and “Under the Moon: A Catwoman Tale” by Lauren Myracle
- “Gabi, a Girl in Pieces” by Isabel Quintero
- “Freakboy” by Kristin Elizabeth Clark
- “In the Night Kitchen” by Maurice Sendak
- “It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health” by Robie Harris
- “My Butt is So Noisy!,” “I Broke My Butt!,” and “I Need a New Butt!” by Dawn McMillan
- “Larry the Farting Leprechaun,” “Gary the Goose and His Gas on the Loose,” “Freddie the Farting Snowman,” and “Harvey the Heart Had Too Many Farts” by Jane Bexley
Defendants in both suits are Llano County Judge Ron Cunningham, county commissioner Jerry Don Moss, library system Director Amber Milum, and Library Advisory Board members Gay Baskin, Bonnie Wallace, Rochelle Wells, and Rhonda Schnieder.
Plaintiffs in the Leila Little suit are Leila Green Little, Jeanne Puryear, Kathy Kennedy, Rebecca Jones, Richard Day, Cynthia Waring, and Diane Moster. All are Llano County residents and library system users.
2 thoughts on “Mediation underway in librarian lawsuit”
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It shouldn’t be about removing books, it should be about WHY books are removed. Someone doesn’t like a particular book? So what, leave it, someone else might like it. A book isn’t checked out for 3-5 years? Remove it, no one wants to read it. A library can’t keep a physical copy of every book ever written or to be written in the future, so some must always be weeded out, shelf space demands it. Books that are checked out and read should remain, that’s why we have libraries. There are of course some “core” books that should always be available, think history, theology, mathematics…you know, those boring books that only students and the self-torturing…I mean self-teaching, read. LOL They teach “Library Science” for a reason and most politicians haven’t taken that course and should stay out of “shelving” decisions.
Is your premise that no book, no matter what, should ever be prohibited from total public access? You draw no line, you make no judgment, you have no concern about downstream effects? How about a book on the best ways to commit suicide, with photos? I can think of many other examples. You don’t care? You don’t want anyone using some degree of judgment about such things?