by Piper Hutchinson, Louisiana Illuminator
May 1, 2024

In a contentious hearing, a Louisiana House Committee shelved two library bills Wednesday, including one that would have criminalized librarians for using public dollars with the nation's preeminent professional organization for librarians. 

The House Committee on Municipal, Parochial and Cultural Affairs involuntarily deferred two bills: House Bill 777 by Rep. Kellee Hennessy Dickerson, R-Denham Springs, which would prohibit the use of public funds on the American Library Association (ALA); and House Bill 946 by Rep. Jay Gallé, R-Covington, which would allow parish governments to remove library board members at any time, for any reason. 

Both bills were spiked amid bipartisan pushback, with several Republicans raising concerns about libraries and librarians being targeted as part of a national agenda.

“It makes me sad that libraries and the people here in the audience have been vilified for a national narrative,” Rep. Jessica Domangue, R-Houma, said, referencing librarians in attendance. 

The library bills are part of what many see as  part of a culture war currently raging across the nation, including in Louisiana. 

Upset with what they view as sexually explicit materials in libraries and the “Marxist” American Library Association, far-right activists have filed thousands of book challenges in the past few years and pushed libraries to disaffiliate with the ALA. 

In Louisiana, public library oversight boards have mostly resisted calls to restrict book content, but some, including the State Library, have ended their ALA memberships. 

The issue has captured the interest of Republicans in Louisiana, including Gov. Jeff Landry. 

As attorney general, Landry set up a tip line to field complaints against libraries that he said failed to protect children from “early sexualization, as well as grooming, sex trafficking, and abuse.” Landry later drafted a “Protecting Innocence” report on libraries and supported legislation to restrict minors' access to certain library materials. 

Some on the House committee raised concerns Wednesday that the bills seemed to impose  solutions sought by the representatives' respective constituents on the rest of the state. 

In Gallé's St. Tammany Parish, the parish council is meeting Wednesday night to approve replacing its library board of control, which has resisted calls to ban books, angering arch-conservative council members. Gallé argued parish governments already have the power to do so, but his bill would codify this authority in state law. 

Gallé's bill is similar to one his predecessor, former Rep. Paul Hollis, who now sits on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, carried last year. Hollis' bill was also involuntarily deferred in the same committee. 

In Dickerson's Livingston Parish, the library has been similarly mired in years-long controversy over book content. The library there has opted to sever its relationship with the American Library Association. 

In its original form, Dickerson's bill would have conferred jail time and fines to anybody who requested or authorized the use of public money with the American Library Association. Such expenses are fairly common in libraries, as many libraries are members to take advantage of ALA benefits or send their librarians to conferences for continuing education. 

Before the bill was killed, Dickerson okayed amendments that would've watered down the punishments in the bill and exempted higher education. The ALA is an accrediting body for masters of library science programs. Programs with this accreditation typically maintain memberships with the organization. 

Dickerson was joined in presenting her bill to the committee by Livingston Parish Council member Erin Sandefur and Livingston Parish Library Board of Control member Larry Davis. The trio argued the ALA is a “radical” organization, and everything it espouses runs contrary to “normative” views. 

The organization is often in the crosshairs of conservatives due to the group's advocacy on behalf of literature with LGBTQ+ themes.

The villainization of the American Library Association is something that perplexes most librarians. 

“I'm not sure exactly what these people think go on at ALA conferences,” Suzanne Stauffer, an LSU library and information science professor, said in an interview. “It's workshops about how to better meet the needs of their community.” 

“Frankly, the conferences are dull,” Stauffer added, laughing. 

Domangue made the same point to the committee, reading out names of panels at an upcoming ALA conference that she said had nothing to do with the “social justice” causes Dickerson and her allies were citing. 

Rep. Vincent Cox, R-Gretna, reminded committee members the ALA was the first organization to hold a major convention in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, during which conference-goers raised money to aid libraries damaged by the storm. 

Three other library bills are still alive for the current session: House Bill 414, by Rep Josh Carlson, R-Lafayette, and House Bill 545 by Rep. Beryl Amedee, R-Houma, would remove exceptions for public libraries and school libraries, respectively, from the state law on obscenity, while Carlson's House Bill 974 removes the requirement that directors of parish library systems receive state certification, which requires librarians to pass an exam and hold a master's degree in library science.

Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com. Follow Louisiana Illuminator on Facebook and Twitter.

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by Greg LaRose, Louisiana Illuminator
May 1, 2024

The Louisiana House of Representatives approved a proposal Tuesday to prohibit what its author considers “discrimination” at K-12 students on the basis of vaccination status. But lawmakers rejected a bill that would have placed similar restrictions on businesses and governmental entities.

Both bills are authored by Rep. Beryl Amedee, R-Schriever, who has carried several pieces of legislation dealing with vaccines and medical consent in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. She has consistently been critical of vaccine mandates, insisting that the COVID shot did not prevent spread of the virus while failing to acknowledge vaccine rates were well below herd immunity status. 

Amedee told House members unvaccinated students were discriminated against during the peak of the pandemic by being seated separately from their classmates and not being allowed to participate in extracurricular sports. Her bill to prevent such actions would apply to all vaccinations.    

“A student who has not been vaccinated is of no particular harm to another student. It's only a student who is carrying an illness who could pass an illness,” Amedee said. 

Lawmakers questioned Amedee on how her measure would affect immunocompromised students, such as those who are undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. Amedee said she believed such students would be kept away from public settings while in treatment. 

Current law allows for schools to send immunocompromised or unvaccinated students home during an outbreak. Amedee said a student's vaccination status is only important during such an event when state law allows schools to keep students out of school.

Her proposal would not allow teachers or school administrators to use a student's vaccination status to determine their eligibility for athletics or other extracurricular activity or to allow or deny their participation inside and outside of the classroom. Teachers would not be allowed to organize seating arrangements based on vaccination status, nor would schools be allowed to issue surveys to students asking about what vaccines they have received.

Amedee acknowledged she did not contact the Louisiana Department of Health regarding her bill, which the House advanced with a 66-36 vote.

Another bill from Amedee would have prevented businesses or any state political subdivision from taking actions against people who refused certain medical services. Her legislation specifically mentions any treatment federal health officials have “authorized for emergency use” – a status given to early versions of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Under the proposal, businesses could not fire or refuse to hire, deny service or access, segregate, penalize or use financial coercion against someone who declined the aforementioned treatments. 

The bill failed in a 38-58 vote. 

Early last month, the House narrowly rejected another Amedee measure that would have required coroners to include the immunization record of infants in their autopsy reports.  

Amedee offered a bill in 2022 that would have prohibited adding any vaccine with emergency use authorization status to the list of immunizations required for school and child daycare entry. It failed to advance from a House committee. 

Other unsuccessful measures Amedee sponsored two years ago targeted on-campus vaccination events, civil remedies for unimmunized students denied access to school and health and life insurers who denied coverage based on someone's vaccine status.

Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com. Follow Louisiana Illuminator on Facebook and Twitter.

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by Ariana Figueroa, Louisiana Illuminator
May 1, 2024

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans Wednesday passed a bill, with heavy support from Democrats, that would define antisemitism for the Department of Education, amid nationwide college campus protests in which students are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The 320-91 vote would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – with which all schools that receive federal funding are required to comply.

But some Democrats raised concerns that the language is too broad and could chill freedom of speech at schools.

“Speech that is critical of Israel alone does not constitute unlawful discrimination,” the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, said during debate of the bill, H.R. 6090.

Republicans have slammed the leaders of higher education institutions that are the sites of protests, calling for them to resign and to send in law enforcement to crack down on the students protesting.

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana is also rolling out a Congress-wide effort to address the protests, such as tougher oversight of university presidents and pulling funding.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York in a Wednesday press conference did not commit to putting the House bill on the Senate floor.

“We haven't seen what the House is sending us yet,” he said.

Lawmakers have focused on Columbia University in New York, where students set up a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”

Students are demanding that the university cut financial ties, such as endowments, with companies that do business with Israel or those that make weapons used in the war in Gaza. More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The New York Police Department was deployed on the campus early Wednesday by Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, who authorized the NYPD to sweep the campus after students took over one of the buildings that has a history of student activism, Hamilton Hall, according to the Columbia Spectator. 

However, students occupying the building have drawn criticism from Democrats as well.

“Smashing windows with hammers and taking over university buildings is not free speech — it is lawlessness, and those who did it should promptly face the consequences that are not merely a slap on the wrist,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday.

More than 300 students were arrested by the NYPD, according to The Associated Press.

Cotton calls for protection of Jewish students

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton held a press conference Wednesday, where he was joined by several Senate Republicans in urging university presidents to crack down on the encampments and to protect Jewish students.

Cotton called for the State Department to pull the visas of international students who have participated in the protests and for the Department of Education to withhold federal funding to those schools where protests are taking place.

“They have a right if they want to go out and make fools of themselves, and protest on behalf of Hamas, but they don't have the right to build little Gazas in violation of the laws,” Cotton said, referring to protesters and encampments.

Cotton was joined by Sens. Rick Scott of Florida, James Lankford of Oklahoma, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Deb Fischer of Nebraska, Joni Ernst of Iowa and Roger Marshall of Kansas.

Lankford said that the protesters have crossed a line and have made Jewish students feel unsafe.

“Every university and every student has the right to be able to speak their mind, to be able to test out new ideas — it's the nature of being on a college campus to be able to speak out and be able to think through different things,” Lankford said.

“We're a nation that prides ourself on the right to speak out, but we're also a nation that says, ‘You cannot go and intimidate someone else in the process.'”

Kennedy and Marshall said policies on diversity, inclusion and equity resulted in the protests on college campuses.

Kennedy said he blamed some of the faculty members at those higher education institutions for the protests.

“There are members of the faculty at some of these universities who believe in diversity, equity, inclusion,” he said.

Ernst said the universities need “to put an end to this.”

“If they don't, they should kiss their federal funding goodbye,” she said.

 Argument against bill

Nadler was the sole Democrat to speak out against the bill during Wednesday's floor debate.

He argued that the language is too broad and would curtail freedom of speech.

“While there is much in the bill I agree with, its core provision would put a thumb on the scale in favor of one particular definition of antisemitism to the exclusion of all others to be used when the Department of Education assesses claims of antisemitism on campus,” Nadler said.

He took issue with some of the examples the definition provides that can be considered antisemitic, such as criticism of the state of Israel.

That definition would be: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

GOP Rep. Tom McClintock of California said the bill was needed because there has been a spike in antisemitism since Oct. 7, the start of the Hamas-Israel war, when Hamas staged an attack against Israeli civilians.

“You cannot fight antisemitism if you cannot define it,” he said.

Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, who sponsored the bill, said without a clear definition of antisemitism, the Department of Education and college administrations are having trouble discerning what is considered antisemitic.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not protect students from discrimination based only on religion. If a student does bring up a complaint, the civil rights division in the Department of Education refers those complaints to the Department of Justice, according to the Department of Education. 

Nadler argued that the bill would threaten freedom of speech, “while doing nothing to combat antisemitism.”

The chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, said the definition is needed to “ensure the safety of Jewish students.”

Foxx has held several hearings throughout the year where she and Republicans on the committee grilled the leaders of universities about the pro-Palestinian protests on their campuses. Another is set for May 23 for the heads of Yale, UCLA and the University of Michigan.

Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com. Follow Louisiana Illuminator on Facebook and Twitter.

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