Will a New Law Make Criminals of Tennessee School Librarians?

Librarians speak out on being caught up in the culture war

Andy Spears
2 min readMay 16, 2022
Photo by Zaini Izzuddin on Unsplash

In the battle to privatize Tennessee’s public schools, school librarians have become “collateral damage.” The attacks have become so great that those oft-quiet librarians are standing up and taking notice.

In fact, one Tennessee librarian took to the pages of American Libraries to explain the plight of librarians as it relates to the current “culture war” being won by proponents of evangelical exceptionalism at the Tennessee General Assembly.

Here’s some of what Nashville’s Lindsey Kimery has to say about the attack on the librarians inside our public schools:

We can’t help but see school libraries and school librarians as collateral damage in the wake of midterm elections and extremism against public education. Being a school librarian is an honorable profession, but some have attempted to align it with criminality. We know we are trained professionals, and we work tirelessly to tailor our collections to

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Andy Spears

Writer and policy advocate living in Nashville, TN —Public Policy Ph.D. — writes on education policy, consumer affairs, and more . . .