Inside the two-year fight to bring charges against school librarians in Granbury, Texas

The law enforcement officer spent months methodically gathering evidence. He leafed through thousands of pages and highlighted key passages amid reams and reams of paper. He wore his body camera to record his interactions with witnesses and suspects. And he photographed what he saw as instruments of the alleged crime:

Books.

The targets of the investigation? Three school librarians in Granbury, Texas. The allegation? They had allowed children to access literature — such as “The Bluest Eye,” by Toni Morrison — that the officer, Scott London, a chief deputy constable, had deemed obscene.

In an extraordinary look into the ramifications of the right-wing backlash against books dealing with racism, gender, sex and sexuality, an 824-page investigative file obtained by NBC News and NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth shows how, for two years, London vigorously pursued felony charges against librarians in the Granbury Independent School District.

London secured subpoenas, filed public records requests, received names of students who’d checked out certain books and, after a year, wrote draft criminal complaints.

Those charges — distributing harmful material to a minor — were never filed. The investigation came to an end in June after Hood County District Attorney Ryan Sinclair turned down London’s request to indict the librarians, citing a lack of conclusive evidence to charge them with felonies.

Sinclair declined to be interviewed and did not respond to written questions. London, who has ties to the anti-government constitutional sheriff’s movement and tried to launch a local chapter of the far-right Oath Keepers militia in 2020, did not respond to questions.

NBC News is not naming the three librarians because they were never charged with a crime. None of them agreed to be interviewed. Granbury Superintendent Jeremy Glenn declined to comment. The district released a statement saying officials looked forward to putting the matter behind them.

“Granbury ISD respects the due diligence of the district attorney and wholeheartedly agrees that this investigation was without merit,” it said.

London’s investigative file offers the most detailed and visceral picture to date of an attempt to prosecute librarians amid the nationwide campaign by conservatives to restrict children’s access to books depicting sex and LGBTQ people.

As London was conducting his probe, at least 18 states considered bills to make it easier to prosecute librarians over contested books, and three — Missouri, Indiana and Arkansas — passed them into law, although Arkansas’ is on hold pending a lawsuit filed by a group of libraries. Police and sheriff’s deputies have been called by parents and right-wing activists to investigate library books in Florida, Missouri, South Carolina and elsewhere, but free speech advocates and librarian organizations say they are unaware of any librarian or school official who has been charged over books.

“It’s as if books have become contraband, and it’s just so alarming,” said Kasey Meehan, who leads a freedom to read campaign at PEN America, a free speech nonprofit.

A series of videos captured by London’s body-worn camera in May 2022 show him striding through school hallways, interviewing administrators and perusing library shelves in search of the offending books.

In one video, a middle school librarian leans over a book check-out counter, her hands folded at her mouth, as London lays out the legal basis for his investigation. On the wall behind the librarian are colorful decorations and a quote from Dr. Seuss: “The more things you read, the more things you will know.”

“There’s been an allegation of books that were in conflict of the penal code in the library,” London tells the librarian, “and so that’s what I’m looking into.”

London says he has some questions, but under the Fifth Amendment, the librarian is not obligated to answer them.

“I really don’t want to at the moment,” she says, shaking her head.

In another video, London lays out several books on a library table and photographs their covers and copyright pages — logging each as evidence of a potential crime.

Adam Steinbaugh, a lawyer for the civil liberties nonprofit the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, said the Granbury investigation stands out from other cases he’s tracked. Steinbaugh obtained a copy of London’s investigative file through a public records request.

This was the first time, he said, that his organization had seen a law enforcement official issue subpoenas and receive records showing how often books had been checked out and by whom, and the first time he’d seen an officer draft criminal complaints against librarians. Watching police body camera footage of school librarians being confronted by an investigator was deeply unsettling, Steinbaugh said.

“Anytime you’re talking about arresting a librarian for the content of books in a library, that’s going to have a chilling effect,” he said. “Why be a librarian? Why take the, frankly, little pay that librarians, especially school librarians, get, and risk going to prison?”

Granbury’s battle over school library books began in early 2022. That January, Glenn, Granbury’s superintendent, directed librarians to remove books that contained descriptions of sex and LGBTQ storylines, according to a secret recording obtained by NBC News, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune. The district later appointed a panel of community volunteers to review dozens of books that a Republican state legislator had flagged as inappropriate.

In the end, the committee members voted to permanently ban just three of the titles, including “This Book Is Gay,” a coming-out guide for LGBTQ teens by transgender author Juno Dawson that includes detailed descriptions of sex, and returned the others to shelves.

The decision outraged a pair of conservative Christian parents who served on the review committee — a homeschooling mother named Monica Brown and Karen Lowery, who was later elected to Granbury’s school board.

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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/school-librarians-banned-books-investigation-texas-rcna161444