12/22/2025
A Mighty Girl's 2025 Profile in Courage: Terri Lesley, a 27-year veteran librarian in Wyoming, won a $700,000 settlement in October after being fired for refusing to remove LGBTQ+ books from library shelves -- enduring two years of harassment, threats to her safety and that of library staff, and false criminal accusations for defending intellectual freedom. Her response when asked if she regretted her stand? "I will never regret standing up for the First Amendment."
After nearly three decades of dedicated service to the Campbell County Public Library System in Gillette, Wyoming -- 11 of them as executive director -- Lesley was terminated in July 2023 following a relentless campaign by a small group of far-right activists demanding the removal of books with LGBTQ+ themes and content. In her federal lawsuit, Lesley alleged that "a small fraction of the community espoused openly homophobic, transphobic, and other hateful ideologies," and that county officials and library board members aligned themselves with this vocal minority's "book-ban campaign" rather than rejecting it.
Despite repeated pressure from this group and sympathetic county commissioners, Lesley maintained that removing books would be unconstitutional censorship and violate the library's obligation to provide open access to information. "I don't regret standing up for the First Amendment in any way," Lesley told The New York Times in a recent interview, "but it was kind of a brutal process to experience it, to have it be such a contentious issue, and for it to be across the country and be called things like a 'pe*****le' or a 'child groomer.' Those things were all very hard to experience."
The controversy began in June 2021 when the library posted about Pride Month and Rainbow Book Month on Facebook to celebrate the library's LGBTQ collection in the teen section. What followed was unprecedented: "We just weren't prepared for the volume and ferocity of it," Lesley said. Lesley and her staff processed 57 challenges on 29 unique titles submitted by just 17 different people -- an extraordinary concentration of complaints from a tiny fraction of the community.
Lesley firmly defended her position on keeping the books, most of which had been on library shelves for years without complaint, accessible to teens: "If you segregate these books, say, in the adult section, and you're teenager, and you go to try to find something on a topic and that book isn't there, you won't discover it. That is a form of censorship." The campaign escalated alarmingly when two residents filed a complaint with the Campbell County Sheriff's Office demanding that library staff, including Lesley, be prosecuted for distributing obscene materials. A special prosecutor investigated and concluded that the books were not obscene.
Over the next two years, four of the five library board positions became vacant and were filled with new appointees sympathetic to the book ban activists; after attempting to pressure Lesley into resigning and failing, the reconstituted board fired her in July 2023. Despite being in one of the most conservative areas of one of the most conservative states, hundreds of people showed up at the special library board meeting when Lesley was fired -- most of them in support of her, with only a few dozen residents backing the board's decision.
Lesley's case reflects a troubling nationwide trend documented in a recent American Library Association report, which found that 72 percent of book challenges were initiated by organizations or government entities; only 16 percent came from parents and 5 percent from regular library patrons. This data starkly contradicts the narrative that school book challenges primarily represent parental concerns. Book challenges and removals soared around 2021, fanned by a network of conservative groups that spread lists of book titles they considered objectionable on social media. The ALA documented 4,240 unique book titles targeted for censorship in 2023 -- a 65% increase over 2022 and the highest level ever documented.
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, explained: "We're not seeing an individual read a book and raise a concern about a book. We're seeing organized groups go to school boards, go to library boards, demanding the removal of dozens, if not hundreds, of books at a time, they are simply downloading lists from advocacy groups and demanding removal of those books... The movement to ban books is not a movement of parents, but a movement of partisans who seek to limit our freedom to read and make different choices about things that matter." PEN America has documented nearly 23,000 book bans in public schools nationwide since 2021, affecting the work of 2,308 authors, 243 illustrators, and 38 translators during the 2024-2025 school year alone.
While the settlement with Campbell County resolves Lesley's employment discrimination claims, her legal battle is far from over. A separate lawsuit filed by Lesley charges three members of the Bennett family with defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress and will continue, with a jury trial scheduled for March 2026. Court documents reveal the extent of the campaign against her: according to the complaint, the Bennetts publicly alleged criminal conduct, reported her to law enforcement seeking her arrest, and even admitted "they would not have accused Ms. Lesley of having committed crimes had she complied with their demands" -- conduct that Lesley characterizes as extortion and blackmail under Wyoming law.
After the settlement was announced, Lesley's attorney Iris Halpern emphasized the constitutional stakes: "We care fundamentally about our constitutional rights and we fundamentally care about our neighbors, even if they're different than us, and want them to have equal access to our public institutions." Despite living in one of the most conservative states, Lesley is convinced these campaigns represent only a vocal minority attempting to impose their views on everyone else.
"I think they are representing a minority," Lesley observed. "It's a live-and-let live kind of state, and I just don't see the people I know signing on to this." Far from backing down, she sees her legal victories as a warning to would-be censors: "My hope is that this will be a deterrent, that we can shut down all these censorship efforts in Wyoming and beyond."
Kudos to Terri Lesley for her courage in standing firm when it mattered most -- and for inspiring librarians everywhere to defend the freedom to read!
For two inspiring books about girls fighting against censorship in schools - both for ages 9 to 12 - we highly recommend "Ban This Book" (https://www.amightygirl.com/ban-this-book) and "Property of the Rebel Librarian" (https://www.amightygirl.com/property-of-the-rebel-librarian)
For a thought-provoking young adult novel exploring censorship, we recommend "Suggested Reading" for ages 14 and up at https://www.amightygirl.com/suggested-reading
For two excellent books about Mighty Girls who find hope by reading forbidden books - both for ages 12 and up - we recommend "Voices" (https://www.amightygirl.com/voices) and "The Book Thief" (https://www.amightygirl.com/the-book-thief)
For books for tweens and teens about girls living in real-life oppressive societies with little respect for freedom of expression, visit our blog post "The Fragility of Freedom: Mighty Girl Books About Life Under Authoritarianism" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=32426
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To stand up against book banning in your community, you can find many resources at Unite Against Book Bans (https://uniteagainstbookbans.org) and PEN America (https://pen.org/)
To read the new ALA report on book banning in the U.S. at https://www.ala.org/news/state-americas-libraries-report-2025
To read more about Terri Lesley's case, visit https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/us/wyoming-library-settlement-book-bans-terri-lesley.html?unlocked_article_code=1.uU8.e8Sm.2_yyeD0RcKIp&smid=url-share
