By Gretchen Garrity
U-Turn in Education, a local progressive group, has written an article titled “Regarding Christian County Library Trustees.” While no one claims authorship, the article says the library “is having troubles due to an outside group.”
Immediately attacking Library Board of Trustee President Echo Schneider, the unnamed author claims Schneider is part of a plot to discredit the American Library Association. The ALA has been discrediting themselves with their bogus “Right to Read,” “Library Bill of Rights,” Marxist presidents, and so on.
The elderly Chicago ALA has had her clothes in tatters for some time. Advocating that all library patrons, regardless of age, should have access to all library materials will do that. Parents and citizens are not buying her wares.
In an appeal to authority, the article states, “This new group’s apparent goal is to damage the oldest, largest, and most respected library association in the world…likely as part of sowing distrust in American institutions for political gain.”
Board members who have stepped up to serve on a local board, with no pay and a contentious public, are “part of sowing distrust in American institutions for political gain.” Gotcha.
The article then questions Schneider’s supposed complicity or her being “duped” in this nefarious plot to attack the ALA. The “outside group” named is the World Library Association, a very new organization that the Connecticut Centinal described at the group’s debut: “Library watchdog Dan Kleinman has just launched the much-needed World Library Association (WLA) to compete with the Marxist-led American Library Association (ALA), which has come under fire most recently for a potential First Amendment violation over its attempt to silence Brave Books, while at the same time promoting highly sexualized "Drag Queen Story Hours" at public libraries across the country."
You can read more about the WLA HERE.
At any rate, the unnamed author then attacks the county commissioners for not properly vetting candidates. In another appeal to authority, they accuse the commissioners of “exclud[ing] expert input...breaking with 66 years of tradition.”
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| EveryLibrary either not knowing or misrepresenting the truth. |
The Christian County Library’s policy handbook reads like a manual from the ALA—that outside group from Chicago, wink wink. These are the experts to which the library board apparently looks to when assessing fitness for a position on the Library Board of Trustees. But, according to the Missouri Public Library Trustee Manual, page 62, recommending new trustees is predicated on a trusted relationship with current board members. “Your influence and that of the director depends on how trustees are seen by the [appointing] officials. If your library is running well, serving well, is well-regarded by the people with whom officials talk, then the trustee should have a voice in new appointments.”
Considering that the public has had a contentious relationship with the Board of Trustees over the past two years, it is commendable that the commissioners took upon themselves the vetting process.
That some people seem unhappy with the present board is reflective of their own issues, and not that of the commissioners or the board. State law is also clear about the appointment process—it belongs with the appointing body.
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| Click on image for clarity |
Describing board president Schneider as a “transplant from Oregon,” the unnamed author seems to suggest there is something wrong with a Missouri citizen who was not born and bred here. That is provincialism. It has no place here. We are all citizens of the United States. And when we move to and establish residency in a state, we exercise the same rights as a citizen born in that state. Was this intended as a slur against Schneider?
If they actually knew
Schneider, they would reconsider their attack. Not only is she very
well and widely known in our community, but she has been tireless in
making connections and friends, and in serving her fellow man through
several public avenues.
U-TURN’S ASSOCIATION WITH “OUTSIDE GROUPS”
U-Turn in Education is insinuating
that Schneider is a member of the WLA in order to somehow harm the
ALA, instead of supporting an alternative option.
WLA
founder Dan Kleinman, who has
been advocating for safe libraries for decades, is now suffering the
scourge of lawfare. It
is not surprising that a far left local group would frame their
attack on a Christian County Library board member in such a way as to
impugn her motives and
attempt to harm her reputation.
Calling the WLA an “outside group,” the unnamed author fails to come clean about several outside groups U-Turn is involved with. Each of these groups is involved in attacking local control of our institutions. Let’s take a look shall we?
The
Missouri Association of School
Librarians is a chapter of the American
Association of School Librarians, which is the ALA. (Note: Clicking on the image makes enlarges and makes them clearer.)
And here is U-Turn describing PEN America as friends:
PEN America is suffering a bit from apparent elitism among its members. Read HERE. More HERE from the NYT. Dissension in the leftist ranks.
U-Turn is also friends with Unite Against Book Bans, which is a partner with the ALA, the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. All far left national organizations. Outside groups, if you will.
U-Turn also refers to the Missouri ACLU as “our friend.” And then there is Fight for the First, an organization tied to EveryLibrary, which is tied to the ALA. U-Turn, is in fact, a chapter of EveryLibrary. You can read more about them HERE.
Here, the outside group EveryLibrary calls for signers to the petition against the board of trustees on their X account:
Instead of considering the community’s commitment to keep children safe in our libraries, and looking for ways to come together, the leftists in our community are doubling down on pernicious and personal attacks and overlooking influences from "outside groups" within their own organization. It’s the Chicago Way.
Let us hope and pray it does not become the Missouri Way.
