Read Freely Alabama, the named plaintiff, claims in paragraph eight of the complaint that it is "grassroots." In paragraph four it is "a local grassroots organization." Both are false. It was created and remains funded and guided by ALA. It is lying to the Court to obtain a jurisdictional basis for ALA to sue the library. Were the plaintiffs truthful, ALA itself would have been the first named plaintiff as opposed to not being a party as all.
The library board changed policies to keep inappropriate material from children, and that cannot be allowed to stand by ALA because ALA's "Library Bill of Rights" makes it "age" discrimination to keep such material from children. This is a Chicago goal, not a Prattville goal. And ALA has been working for over half a century to ensure children nationwide get and retain access to inappropriate material. See: Koganzon, Rita. “There Is No Such Thing as a Banned Book: Censorship, Authority, and the School Book Controversies of the 1970s.” American Political Thought 12, no. 1 (January 2023): 1–26. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PZ2pDhKhRAtlNgR7gek_1kcdGFoskHpa/view?usp=sharing
So not only did ALA create Read Freely Alabama, but it also created multiple other local groups, namely, STOP Book Bans at Autauga-Prattville Public Library!, Stand with the Autauga-Prattville Public Library, Prattville First Amendment Defense Group, and Protect Prattville Library Staff and Patrons. Read Freely Alabama was chosen to be the plaintiff standing in for ALA that doesn't have standing.
Details of the ALA astroturfed groups in Prattville were previously reported by me here:
- "The Prattville Putsch: ALA's Praxis of its Policies"
- https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-prattville-putsch.html
Since that reporting there is more evidence of ALA's control of Read Freely Alabama that goes to supporting this is sham litigation. Here is the web page for news from Read Freely Alabama (RFA) and notice seven out of eight news stories are written by John Chrastka. He's from ALA (via ALA's group called EveryLibrary, as I reported here: "Library Boards Trained to Lie by ALA; Banned Books Wedge Issue Adopted by White House" https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2023/06/library-boards-trained-to-lie-by-ala.html)
ALA is writing the news for Read Freely Alabama and the website has seven out of eight articles written by ALA's Chrastka:
Other web pages directly reference EveryLibrary, like "About Our Work":
- Read Freely Alabama: About Our Work
- https://www.readfreelyalabama.org
- "You can help reverse these terrible actions by the library board. Please sign the petition and stand with Read Freely Alabama, the Prattville First Amendment Defense Group, and EveryLibrary to support the staff as they support Constitutional rights."
- Note: the link to the Prattville First Amendment Defense Group goes directly to an ALA site (via EveryLibrary), so one ALA astroturfed group is working with another ALA astroturfed group and with EveryLibrary which itself is another ALA group created precisely to allow ALA to take political action.
The "Donate" page links to yet another ALA/EveryLibrary web site:
- Support Read Freely Alabama
- https://www.readfreelyalabama.org/donate_redirect
- https://www.fundlibraries.org/campaign/220/support-read-freely-alabama
- Note: "Fund Libraries is a non-profit crowdfunding platform for libraries from the EveryLibrary Institute (EIN: 81-4351204), a 501c3 non-profit organization that supports library funding in the United States." https://www.fundlibraries.org
By the way, also in paragraph eight of the complaint the plaintiff asserts it is "volunteer-run." Oh no. It gets money from ALA via EveryLibrary, according to what ALA itself revealed, and it gets a ton of services for free. We can call them "volunteer" but they are really getting what's needed to community organize and fundraise while local citizens who support the defendants and community children are left in the dust. And ALA does this in community after community across America. Governments get hundreds of emails already prewritten by ALA. People show up by the dozens after having been astroturfed by ALA. It's sort of like library policy by bullying. So "volunteer-run" is intentionally misleading. The people providing the community organizing platforms aren't volunteers, they are paid.
In summary, this is an ALA effort, wrapped in an Alabama veneer, filed with a federal court, hiding that Chicago's American Library Association, the real plaintiff here, has no standing itself to bring such litigation before the Court. It's sham litigation by ALA, and an astroturfing escalation in ALA's war on children in America.
Liberati legunt sine restrictione in the graphic logo upper right means "free to read without restriction." That's Chicago ALA's goal, not the goal of the Autauga-Prattville Public Library Board of Trustees who acted within the law to carry out the goals of the local citizenry to whom they answer, not the Chicago Way. Let's hope justice is done and this sham litigation is closed.
Besides, even ALA's Read Freely Alabama says, "We trust librarians to partner with parents to ensure developmental and age-appropriate access to information and books." So even Read Freely Alabama really stands for Liberati legunt cum restrictione, free to read with restrictions, like "developmental and age-appropriate access to books." That's nearly exactly what the Autauga-Prattville Public Library Board of Trustees wants and set as policy.
There's literally no case here, sham litigation or not.
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