The Autauga-Prattville Library Board fired the library’s director during an special meeting on Thursday — a decision the director’s supporters claimed was retaliation for questioning the board’s new book banning policy.
The board also terminated “several” Autauga-Prattville Public Library staffers who locked the facility shortly after Andrew Foster’s firing in solidarity with their former boss, the director told AL.com.
“I hate that it went this way … and I think the actions that have happened today are ultimately just going to impact the community,” Foster said.
The meeting’s stated purpose was vague. The board’s special meeting notice said the session was called “to discuss the good name and character of an individual.”
Foster said he was told during the meeting that “something I did violated federal law,” but “was never given any specific code” of an alleged offense.
Not knowing what the meeting was about, Foster said he recorded the session but stopped after he was told that, too, violated federal law. Under Alabama law, a conversation can be recorded if one of the parties is aware it is being recorded.
His termination occurred three days after Alabama Political Reporter published a story that included documents showing Foster pushing back against the board’s list of books to be banned for children due to “obscenity, sexual conduct, sexual intercourse, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender discordance.”
Asked if he believed that was the actual reason for his termination, Foster said, “That’s what it felt like.”
“As a library, we are about open information,” he said. “That information being a black eye on the board, they did not seem to like it.”
Angie Hayden, a Prattville resident who helped create the group Read Freely Alabama to combat book challenges, agreed.
“He has done nothing wrong,” she said. “I think they had been gunning for him since they took over because they know that what they want to accomplish is incompatible with a librarian that follows librarian ethics and constitutional librarianship.”
Hayden said the board’s list of books to be banned or red flagged for “sexual content” include books with “zero sexual content” such as “Red: A Crayon’s Story” and “Yes! No! A First Conversation About Consent.”
She said Read Freely Alabama plans on supporting Foster “as he researches his options.”
Foster said he has hired an attorney.
“I don’t know where things are going to go, where things are going to sit. This is something. I truly didn’t know, didn’t expect the staff would stand in solidarity with me like they did. But this decision shows the situation as it is.”
After Foster was fired, staffers at the library locked the facility and pledged not to reopen it until Foster was reinstated.
One employee fought back tears as she stood up for her former boss.
“He has fought so hard for libraries to be libraries, for people to have access to information and for parents to parent their own children,” Adrienne Barringer said. “We will not stand for this.”
Foster’s termination is not the first shakeup as a result of the new board’s policies.
Christie Sellers resigned from the board in February after the board enacted policies banning books for minors 17 and younger that contains “obscenity, sexual conduct, sexual intercourse, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender discordance.” In November, the majority of the board resigned after the Autauga County Commission appointed board members without their approval.
Prattville has been one of several communities in the state dealing with a wave of book challenges.
