Writing this makes me nervous. It deals with institutions I’m close to, and it’s one of those cases where both sides look bad. But it’s important to say it, and it might have a positive effect just because I’m so close. These events happened a while ago, but I just learned about them while researching something else. (That happens a lot.)
On one side we have Arlene Quaratiello, a minor New Hampshire politician and librarian who takes a restrictive view on what libraries should carry. On the other side we have the Dudley-Tucker Library in Raymond, New Hampshire, which violated her First Amendment rights. Quaratiello, who lives in Atkinson (which is also Karoline Leavitt’s home; what is it about that town?), wrote to a local news site endorsing two candidates for library trustee. She emailed a Republican Party chapter urging them to run conservative candidates for library trustee positions. Her letter advocated “protecting our children from the increasing amount of inappropriate material available … without sacrificing the intellectual freedom that has always characterized public libraries.”
This is at least worrisome, but it’s her right in the United States to express those views. She expressed them on her own time, using her personal resources. In spite of that, the Dudley-Tucker Library, where she was Assistant Director, terminated her. The reason given was “lack of separation of personal/political values and agendas from DTL policies, procedures, and occurrences” and that she supposedly was “not able to maintain the separation between personal and Library tenets.”
As far as I can tell, there was no basis for this charge. In most cases, government employees fact no restrictions on what views they can express on their own time. FIRE has a discussion of government employees’ free speech rights on its website. Pickering v. Board of Education is similar in many ways, and it says that if employees speak on their own time and don’t significantly impact the services the employer performs, that’s their constitutional right.
The consent order that resolved Quaratiello’s lawsuit confirms what I’ve said here. It says: “The Dudley-Tucker Library regrets its conduct toward Quaratiello and the violation of Plaintiff Quaratiello’s Constitutional rights, and will remind, in writing, all personnel to remain from engaging in disciplinary activity that punishes the First Amendment activities of employees.”
I’ve been to the Dudley-Tucker Library. It was part of my tour of every public library in Rockingham County. As a state representative, Quaratiello introduced legislation to weaken the privacy of library borrowing histories. I don’t like her approach, but the right of free speech comes first.
Freedom of speech includes freedom for those you don’t like, or it means nothing.