Bob Hebert, who serves as judge of the county Commissioner’s Court, told Brown shortly before she announced the books’ relocation that the library’s four-year-old materials-review policy was invalid because commissioners had never approved it, even though the library board had. However, Kennerly emphasized to the Sun, Hebert never specifically asked Brown to relocate the books.
Challenged by an unidentified Sugar Land resident, the same titles were recently moved to the restricted section of the Fort Bend School District’s media centers after resident Lisa Jobe sent an e-mail to Superintendent Betty Baitland. According to the October 14 Sun, Jobe became concerned about the books’ content after reading about the protracted controversy in Montgomery County, Texas. When an informal complaint to FBCL did not produce similar results, the Spirit of Freedom Republican Women’s Club petitioned Hebert to have the titles moved because they contain “frontal nudity [and] discussion of homosexual relationships and abortion.”
Posted October 27, 2003.