The Fairhope Public Library’s state funding likely will not be reinstated anytime soon after the chairman of the state’s library board claimed the board is failing to relocate materials deemed “sexually explicit.”

John Wahl, who is also the chairman of the Alabama State Republican Party, said Tuesday that the Fairhope Library Board has received “clear and specific guidance” on how to comply with the Alabama Public Library Service’s code, adopted last summer, and that it’s apparently in violation.

“The APLS board has been clear that there are no exceptions or loopholes in the new code changes – compliance with state code is mandatory for continued access to state funding,” Wahl said in the statement. “My conversations with Fairhope officials have been respectful and cordial. I strongly encourage them to listen to the people of Fairhope and relocate inappropriate materials out of the library’s youth sections. The decision on whether to come into compliance remains in their hands.”

Which books?

Wahl’s statement doesn’t include the names of specific books or content that might be deemed “sexually explicit” under the state law which remain shelved in the children and teen sections.

During the board’s meeting on Monday, the group voted to keep two booths – “Sold,” a 2006 book about sexual slavery India, and “Grown,” a 2020 book about sexual exploitation – in the teen section.

Wahl said the APLS has not issued a judgement on whether those two books “contained inappropriate material under state code.”

Board members who reviewed the two books said, when taken at their full context, do not contain obscenity as defined through federal law, nor do they violate community standards on what can be displayed inside the Fairhope Public Library.

Randal Wright, the new board chair, said they based their decisions on “community standards.”

She noted that Wahl, during a Zoom meeting with library directors last week, confirmed that a library doesn’t have to move a book even if one library in Alabama has it shelved in a teen section while another has it shelved in the adult section.

“He said ‘no community standards are different,’” Wright said. “As far as I’m concerned, our community concerns are different than where he is. The problem is it’s subjective.”

The Fairhope library board’s requirements on whether a book should be relocated include, among other things, reviewing previous legal standards over what defines obscenity. That includes analyzing the book in its entirety on whether it appeals to prurient interests that can be viewed as sexually stimulating or has the potential to sexually arouse someone.

“They don’t have obscene material in them,” Wright said on Monday during the board meeting. She called “Sold” a “tragic, sad and horrible” story about a girl sold into sexual slavery in India.

She added, “It’s so well-written and has won all kinds of awards. But looking at everything we think about (when considering a book’s relocation), it just doesn’t have anything in it that is prurient. It’s not real graphic. Yes, things happen. But again, it belongs in the teen section.”

Board members also said they plan to review 13 other books to see if they should be relocated. The library’s director has already OK’d the relocation of five books from the youth to adult sections.

Wahl responded, “I hope that the Fairhope Library is moving towards compliance and I look forward to seeing their decisions on the 13 other books.”

Funding and courier service

The APLS temporarily suspended the state funding to the Fairhope Library in March.

The group receives about $42,000 annually in state funding. An online fundraiser raised around $46,000 within 12 days to help supplement the lost revenue. The city provides the lion’s share of the library’s annual funding of around $1 million annually, and city officials have said the library is not at risk of losing it.

Wright and Anne Johnson, also a library board member, said the bigger issue for the library board is for it to be in compliance with the APLS code so it can maintain its courier service within Baldwin County. The library, they said, provides 1,000 books a week to other libraries in Baldwin County. It also receives about that same amount from the other libraries as content is moved throughout Baldwin County.

“It’s a critical component of what the library does,” Johnson said.

Concerned citizens

Much of the blame for the loss funding in Fairhope has been placed on the conservative activist group, Moms for Liberty, whose representatives in Baldwin County have raised concerns with the APLS board about the placement of the books in Fairhope. The group has also scrutinized library policies and book placements in Spanish Fort and Foley.

Wahl said the APLS is listening to the citizens and working toward solutions addressing everyone’s concerns. Critics of the APLS board’s handling of the Fairhope Library argue that Wahl and the rest of the state board are paying attention more to a smaller group of conservative activists who are raising their concerns directly to them.

Wahl said one of the key items of the APLS code is to allow “citizens to request the relocation of books based on state code requirements.”

At Monday’s board meeting, none of the residents who have raised concerns about book locations within the library made a statement during the meeting. Instead, a group of pro-Fairhope library board representatives spoke out against what they say were attacks on the public library, and that most of the books being challenged were shelved in age-appropriate areas.

During a Fairhope City Council meeting last month, an overflowing crowd of library supporters showed up to express their disapproval of the APLS handling of the Fairhope system.

Wahl said the APLS codes were created to ensure that every family in Alabama “feels safe in our public libraries.” He said that parents who want their children to have broader access to materials should have that ability, but “at the same time, parents who do not want their children exposed to sexually explicit content should have confidence that such material is not inappropriately placed in youth sections.”

Wahl added, “Sexuality is a deeply personal and sensitive topic, and as a society, we must acknowledge that people hold different perspectives on how it should be addressed with children.”

He also said that he believes a “vast majority” of Alabama parents do not want their children to accidentally stumble upon “explicit” content while browsing books in sections intended for young readers.

“Ensuring that such materials are relocated to appropriate areas is a reasonable step that respects the rights of all families without denying access to those who seek it,” he said.

‘Sexually explicit’

The question over what constitutes “sexually explicit” materials is at the heart of the dispute in Fairhope where different groups have different interpretations of what that means under both Alabama code, and federal obscenity law.

Related: First Amendment dispute intensifies as Alabama libraries resist book relocation demands

Twice in the past couple of years have federal courts gotten involved in library book relocations in other states – in Iowa and Arkansas. Federal courts have ruled against governments that have attempted to either have certain books banned or moved within a library.

In the Arkansas case of Virden v. Crawford County, a federal court determined that the public library system violated the First Amendment by adopting a policy requiring branches to remove LGBTQ-themed books from children’s sections, label them, and place them in a separate “social section.”

The judge, who ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in 2024, said the decision was a “textbook example” of viewpoint discrimination. The county has since been ordered to pay $113,000 in legal fees for the plaintiffs.