By Shauna Brito
At the May 21, 2026, Cromaine District Library Board meeting, trustees voted 4–1 to relocate more than 160 challenged books — most of them LGBTQ‑themed — to the adult section. The decision came after a year‑long challenge process initiated by 12 patrons who submitted 218 book challenges copied from an online list. Challengers acknowledged they had not read the books, which included juvenile, teen, adult, and parenting materials.
The challenge forms objected to an “LGBTQ lifestyle,” alleged “sexual exploitation of children,” and requested their removal. Several unrelated titles — the 14th Amendment, civil rights, and STEM — were also labeled as harmful to minors.
Library Director Sarah Neidert met with the challengers multiple times to explain that books cannot be removed based on viewpoint under established constitutional and professional standards. When removal was not permitted, the challengers shifted their demands to labeling and relocating LGBTQ‑themed books to the adult section.
In response, the Board majority – Bolin, Gogoleski, Armstrong, Smith, and Basley, all of whom were elected with support from the Livingston County Republican Party — rewrote the library’s collection development policy with assistance from Alliance Defending Freedom, a religious advocacy group known for supporting anti-LGBTQ rights and book bans. The revisions removed the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights, which protects patrons’ rights to access information privately and free from censorship, and created a new appeals process allowing the board to overturn the director’s decisions. The policy was never reviewed by the library’s legal counsel despite its legal implications.
The director completed detailed evaluations of all challenged books. Of these, 10 were relocated within other collections and 13 received labels (including anatomy books). Books containing sexual content were already shelved in the teen or adult sections. The most controversial and frequently cited title, “Gender Queer,” was already in the adult collection.
The challengers appealed the director’s decisions, triggering the new board appeal process requiring trustees to read each book, cite specific page numbers, and apply a strict definition of sexually explicit content before recommending relocation or labeling.
However, during public meetings, trustees repeatedly failed to follow the evaluation criteria. Some cited personal moral objections, introduced fabricated definitions and unsourced medical claims, or pointed to non‑sexual content — such as two boys kissing or a character cross‑dressing — as justification for relocation. Trustee Bolin, who helped organize the book challenge, also participated in judging those same titles, raising concerns about impartiality and whether recusal would have been appropriate.
After a year, the board completed only 58 of the 218 appeals. At the May meeting, trustees acknowledged they no longer wanted the burden of reading the remaining books. A motion to accept the director’s decisions failed. A subsequent motion to relocate all remaining challenged books to the adult section passed by majority.
The board’s decision drew strong reactions from patrons at the meeting. A few applauded the move, claiming the books caused “gender confusion” or could “harm a child.” But most attendees argued that the board had violated its own policy, infringed on First Amendment rights, and abused its authority to push a political agenda against the LGBTQ+ community.
Last year, both the library’s attorney and the ACLU warned the board that relocating or restricting access to books based on disagreement with their themes constitutes government‑imposed viewpoint discrimination. In Sund v. City of Wichita Falls (2000), a federal judge held that moving LGBTQ children’s books to an adult section unlawfully burdened access. In Wyoming, a former library director won a $700,000 settlement after being fired for refusing to remove LGBTQ‑themed books.
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The board has stated that its goal is to prevent minors from accessing sexual content. Yet all of the books relocated last week contain no sexual content at all. Ironically, the decision now requires minors to enter the adult section — where actual mature materials are shelved — to find books written for them. This contradiction demonstrates that the relocation was not about sexual content, but about creating burden of access to LGBTQ‑themed materials.
This raises serious questions for the community. How much taxpayer money could be spent on discrimination lawsuits? Will the director and staff resign or walk out because they are being given directives that contradict legal guidance? And how will this affect the library’s planned renovation project this summer, which depends on stable operations and finances?
The community has watched this board abandon professional standards, disregard legal warnings, and misuse its authority to target LGBTQ+ materials. These actions have eroded public trust, damaged the library’s reputation, and placed staff in untenable positions. The public expects its institutions to uphold the Constitution, not circumvent it; to protect access to information, not restrict it; and to serve the entire community, not impose the personal beliefs of a few. The board’s actions continue to place the library at serious risk and fuel a divisive environment in the community—one in which constitutional rights are being selectively applied to some patrons while denied to others.
Shauna Brito lives in Brighton Township
