The best offense, part two

Dear Sec. Hargett:

Pursuant to your 10/27/25 request for a final report on an “age-appropriateness review … of all materials in the juvenile children’s section” to include a “summary of any titles that you determined were not age-appropriate for the juvenile children’s section,” here's the summary:

Zero.

That’s the number of titles that we found to be age-inappropriate for the juvenile children’s department.

Surprised? Don’t be.

In order to qualify for State support, we (and every other public library in TN) must meet the minimum requirements of the “Public Service Library Agreement” promulgated by your department, which last we checked was the “Department of State” — but that’s just what the letterhead says so maybe we’re misinformed?

It just feels ironic that *we* should be giving *you* information about the policies of your own department.

But hey, if that’s the deal, here’s what we already do and have already done for however long you’ve been insisting on this, as per the “Collection Development and Internet Safety Policy Minimum Requirements” attached to the ageement (enumeration as per the attachment):

“4. No funds received are used to purchase, nor will the library otherwise acquire, material that contains ‘child pornography,’ is ‘pornographic for minors,’ or is ‘obscene;’

5. Books and materials that contain sexual themes or content are reviewed by the public library independently for age-appropriateness and cataloged accordingly — even if this overrides the age-appropriateness recommended by the publisher;

6. The library has a written, publicly-accessible library materials challenge policy that (a) defines which parties may dispute or challenge the library’s age-appropriate designation on materials, with such definition, at a minimum, including a parent or guardian of a minor within the library district …”

Etc. etc. but you know the rest, right? I mean, you *do* know the rest, don’t you?

So the library materials challenge policy says if anyone wants to dispute a book like, say (just spitballing here) Fred Gets Dressed, yeah, sure, please pursue a challenge. We welcome challenges because it gives us an opportunity to give our side. It gives us a chance to do the American thing, and that is to bring due process to the settlement of questions of guilt, innocence, or age-appropriateness.

Due process requires — as does our State-approved challenge policy — that the disputant *at minimum* read the disputed material. Please consider adding this to the minimum requirements of verbiage for such a policy.

You’d be amazed at the number of people who think that copying a title off a defunct Moms for Liberty website is an adequate basis for a challenge. If you didn’t know better, you might even be tempted to suggest that a book like, say (just spitballing here) Fred Gets Dressed is “worthy of review.”

Is it just us, or does that sound like deep-state-speak for “you better damn well get rid of this book because I’m carrying water for a guy who doesn’t like it. Has he read it? Hell no! He wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.”

But surely not. Surely you realize that librarians are already working within the bounds of the rules that you require, and surely you would never require them to perform unnecessary labor (and it is labor) just to jump through hoops because GOP activists are thirsty. Surely you understand that the policies you already require are the due-process basis for challenges to the collection.

Surely you believe that. Surely you believe in the policies that you require. Surely you believe that libraries operate in good faith in carrying out those policies. We refuse to think that you are so cynical as to operate in a way that contradicts the American way that privileges due process as both a right and an ideal.