While Sarah was mayor of Wasilla, she tried to fire our highly respected city librarian because the librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed.
Censorship concerns me greatly, so I looked into this a bit. Two facts seem to be pretty well documented: - Palin sent a letter to the librarian asking whether the librarian would remove books if asked. The librarian said she would not. - Some months later, Palin asked for the librarian's resignation.
What I have not yet found is evidence that Palin actually asked for books to be removed, nor of the existence of the causal link that the author of the linked article asserts; all of the sources I could find led back to personal accounts from this same author, Anne Kilkenny, a Democratic activist. Without more solid evidence, we can't yet reach any conclusion about Palin's views on censorship; for all we know, refusing censorship could have been exactly what Palin wanted to hear from the librarian, but she decided to fire her anyway over an unrelated issue.
It looks like the matter was discussed in a city council meeting, so hopefully more corroborating evidence can be found in the meeting's minutes, and in accounts from others who were there. I'll be watching this story with interest to see if such evidence comes to light.
no subject
Censorship concerns me greatly, so I looked into this a bit. Two facts seem to be pretty well documented:
- Palin sent a letter to the librarian asking whether the librarian would remove books if asked. The librarian said she would not.
- Some months later, Palin asked for the librarian's resignation.
What I have not yet found is evidence that Palin actually asked for books to be removed, nor of the existence of the causal link that the author of the linked article asserts; all of the sources I could find led back to personal accounts from this same author, Anne Kilkenny, a Democratic activist. Without more solid evidence, we can't yet reach any conclusion about Palin's views on censorship; for all we know, refusing censorship could have been exactly what Palin wanted to hear from the librarian, but she decided to fire her anyway over an unrelated issue.
It looks like the matter was discussed in a city council meeting, so hopefully more corroborating evidence can be found in the meeting's minutes, and in accounts from others who were there. I'll be watching this story with interest to see if such evidence comes to light.