A far-right member of the school board in a Texas town, who has been on a crusade to ban books, was censured on Wednesday night for allegedly lying to gain access to a high school library.
The 5-2 vote to reprimand Karen Lowery came after dozens of residents of Granbury—evenly divided between those who were appalled by her actions and those who defended her—spoke during a five-hour meeting about what’s being called Librarygate.
Lowery also spoke, insisting she did not lie about where she was going when she showed up at the school, did not turn out the lights so she could skulk around in the dark, and did not falsely claim she had permission to be there. She also said she would not resign.
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“‘Vengeance is mine, and recompense,’ says the Lord,” she said. “I am not going anywhere.”
Lowery is a first-term board member elected in November after pledging to rid the schools of books with sexual content that she and fellow ultra-conservatives deem objectionable.
She was a private citizen when she became a darling of Hood County’s extreme right by filing a criminal complaint in May of last year —that the investigation is still ongoing—alleging the high school was illegally harboring obscene books. She then made the supposed pornography the focus of a successful campaign for the school board. After being elected in November, she continued to raise the specter of smut sullying the shelves even though a committee found none through an exhaustive review.
As The Daily Beast previously reported, Lowery arrived with another woman at Granbury High School at 8 a.m. on Aug. 2 and allegedly told a clerk that they were going to an event for underprivileged in the cafeteria. A passing assistant principal discovered the two in the darkened library an hour and a half later, appearing to examine books with cellphone lights.
The assistant principal later reported that Lowery told him that Herrington had given her permission to be there. Herrington disputed this, saying she had told Lowery at a meeting in July that she needed to first secure permission from the school’s principal.
“I have never seen such a blatant breach of ethics in public schools,” Board President Barbara Herrington said in a post-incident email to Lowery with the subject line: “Results of Investigation of Your UNauthorized Presence in Library.”
On Wednesday night, Lowery said she had breached nothing.
Her account is that she called the principal's office in advance to say she was coming and took the more distant entrance to the library because that was the only one she knew from a previous visit. She denied saying she had permission to be in the library when she was discovered there and said she was in the dark only because she did not know where the light switches were.
“You're in there an hour and 20 minutes and you didn’t think to look along the wall for a light switch?” trustee Billy Emblerly asked.
“It would be a waste of my time to look around for an hour and 20 minutes looking for a light switch,” Lowery replied.
“You’re wasting a lot of our time tonight,” Wimberly said.
Lowery did not explain to fellow board members on Wednesday why she went to the library, but at a meeting on Monday, she suggested her mission was not just to find sexual content.
“Because I was in the library, books are still being found and that are inappropriate, on the edge,” she said. “Teen drinking, gang violence, homeless man kicked to the ground, gasoline poured on him, set on fire, foul language drive by shootings, attempted murder of the witness of the killing of the homeless man, teen depression, drug use.”
She was saying that “on the edge” should be off the shelf, which would take the book-banning movement to new lows.
“No, it’s not pornographic, but these are totally uneducational and unacceptable books,” she said. “And there’s more.”
The local Republican Party was quick to come to Lowery’s defense following Librarygate. In emails to Herrington and to Granbury schools superintendent Jeremy Glenn—which a parent secured with an open records request—the party chief invoked Jesus and scripture in urging them to dismiss the accusations against her.
“I ask, WWJD,” Hood County Republican chair Steve Biggers wrote in an Aug. 15 email to the board. “What would Jesus do?”
Biggers cited “an encouraging verse”—Proverbs 24:26 :“For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.”
He then declared, “Please stop this ‘mischief’! The drama and the hate that is being directed at a duly elected official in our country is sinful and off the charts. The lies and misinformation are causing a tear in the social fabric of our community.”
Biggers insisted Lowery had only been acting within her rights as an elected board member.
“I believe Mrs. Lowery did nothing wrong. Many people believe she did nothing wrong. Folks have spoken with her and others involved, and this smacks of [a] 1940’s smear campaign.”
Biggers also emailed the school district superintendent Jeremy Glenn.
“This witch hunt against Karen has to stop. The hate and division it’s creating in this community is about ready to explode,” he said.
“I quote from the Japanese Admiral Yamamoto; ‘I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve,’” he continued.
The 50 speakers before Wednesday’s vote were roughly split on the question of censure. Those opposed spoke of the evil of pornography, and one began reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Those in favor spoke of trust and said school kids have bigger things to worry about.
“I hope I don’t come home from work and catch my kid reading,” Adrienne Quinn Martin, the parent who made the public records request, said sarcastically. “Karen and others say they’re protecting their kids from explicit language. The kids at the middle school and the high school hear explicit language every day, including the n-word and other slurs from fellow students. Unlike the books, hearing hate on a regular basis does hurt kids. You want to regulate language in schools? Try eliminating hate speech.”
She continued, “Based on my observations, some community members have developed an unhealthy obsession with book banning, and at this point, they’re willing to do anything… Why the obsession with finding these books. Why is that your fantasy? It’s weird.”
Another parent, Sharee Westlund, said that the committee that reviewed books in the library must have missed one.
“It speaks of depression, homosexuality, sodomy, sexual impurity, bestiality, suicide, murder, adultery, racism, rape, cuss words, and death. It’s the Lord’s word,” she said.
She meant the Bible.
As the vote neared, Herrington noted that half of the room would be going home angry, however it went. Trustee Courtney Gore then said, “What it comes down to tonight is to either believe the teachers, the administrators, and their statements, or believe what Mrs. Lowery is telling us. That’s really what this boils down to. I am going to stand with our teachers and our staff, and I’m going to move that we censure Karen Lowry.”
The motion was seconded, and Herrington called for a hand vote. The long night ended with Lowery officially censured.
“I would ask all of you to go home in a pleasant way, to not have any kind of interaction between either group because that is inappropriate in a school setting,” Herrington said.
