Worker says she lost job over Harry Potter dispute

[proud2BlibKansan]

The Associated Press

ST. LOUIS | The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri has filed a lawsuit against the city of Poplar Bluff after a library worker claims she was disciplined for failing to work at an event to promote a Harry Potter book.

Anthony Rothert with the ACLU in St. Louis says the woman, Deborah Smith, is a Southern Baptist who believes the Harry Potter series popularizes witchcraft and the practice of the occult.

He says she was suspended without pay for 10 days when she refused to work at a library event on July 21, 2007, for the release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” He says Smith, who has a pacemaker, was given arduous tasks, like emptying out a book drop-off box, upon her return, and quit on her doctor’s recommendation.

He says the lawsuit filed in federal court in Cape Girardeau Tuesday alleges violations of her civil and First Amendment rights and seeks unspecified damages. There was no immediate response from Poplar Bluff’s attorney.

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[MercutioATC]

1. As loony as this woman is, she's right on this.

If the facts are as presented, she was treated unfairly.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. If the facts are as presented

If is right. :)

[ColbertWatcher]

7. True, but only if facts are as presented. n/t

[Ian David]

14. I agree. I side with the fundie nutjob on this, too. Unless there's something we don't know.

Like maybe.... Oh, I dunno... like if she was a Wiccan the day before the bookfair when she suddenly became Baptist to avoid work or something.

[Dogtown]

30. Or if she refused to do her job

Poor little bigot, not allowed to get :evilgrin: behind her!!1!


They should have fired her instead of a suspension, but they gave her a break. If she quit because she was unable to perform her tasks, she has no grounds for this lawsuit. I find it hard to believe that her job description doesn't include emptying out the drop box, and lifting 1 book at a time onto a shelving cart doesn't seem an arduous task.

UNLESS THE DEBIL MADE THEM HEAVY!!11!

Any1 here sued their boss for making them show up?

[Ian David]

34. I would refuse to promote a book by John Hagee if I worked at a library.

I'd put it on the shelves, allow people to check it in and out, but I wouldn't participate in a book fair to promote it.

Same goes for that "Left Behind" series.

[Dogtown]

37. Ok

but you wouldn't have grounds for litigation if you were terminated, suspended, or told to empty the drop box.

[orleans]

41. it reminds me

of the pharmacists who won't sell the morning after pill
weren't there some pharmacists who wouldn't sell birth control pills?
and this crap in CA where some employees don't want to be conducting gay marriage ceremonies.

jeez. it's like the founder of m.a.d.d. working at a liquor store and then refusing to do any work.

hey, on second thought--maybe i should try to get a job working at a republican fund raiser/campaign and then refusing to do any work because it's against my better judgment to promote republicans.

[Ian David]

44. I think there's a difference here.

I am not in favor of a pharmacist refusing to fill birth control prescriptions.

However, I would support a pharmacist who refused (for religious reasons) to attend a Birth Control Festival on behalf of his employer.

I am not in favor of librarians banning or refusing to dispense books they have religious objections to.

However, I support their right to a religious objection to participate in a festival promoting it.

Even though I think they're stupid and crazy.

[orleans]

47. i was going to argue and say maybe they are a small library

and needed all the employees to pitch in and help at the event
however
i just googled and they have about $100,000 more in their operating budget than my town does

i don't know.

you know, the event is designed to promote/celebrate reading--and encouraging kids to read popular books/stories is part of it.

i doubt the theme was wizardry for children 101

but because they appear to be a large enough library, they probably should not have pushed this woman to work this event. (did she tell them she wouldn't because of her religious beliefs?)

i get tired of the aclu running to rescue these assholes that have probably been trashing them for years, telling people how horrible the aclu is and why they should be put out of business.

argh.

[Ian David]

48. I think pulling their anal-cyst infected assses out of the fire is important...

... and key to winning their Hearts and Minds.

[Liberal Veteran]

2. What? The ACLJ wouldn't take her case, so she had to go to the godless heathens...

...of the ACLU?

I'm just kinda hard pressed to imagine a person who is Southern Baptist and is worried about being tainted by Harry Potter would have anything to do with the ACLU.

[ColbertWatcher]

9. LOL!

You'd think she wouldn't go to the ACLU for the same reason she didn't do the job she was hired to do for the library.

[Finn Polke]

15. Totally

Yeah, right, why would you hop into Satan's bed with the ACLU? I think that lady need another river dunking. But, as others have said, if the facts are correct here, she's been wronged and deserves her job back. And, those nasty liberal library admins need to cool out, we can't be triggering heart attacks in fundamentalists, it looks bad.

[ColbertWatcher]

20. OK. Welcome to DU. n/t

[Bake]

29. The only civil rights the fundies/Pukes believe in are THEIR OWN.

"Screw everybody else."

Bake

[msongs]

3. the BIBLE is all about witchcraft and practice of the occult....sheeesh nt

[Liberal Veteran]

6. Now, now. If you call upon the supernatural powers of the Holy Spirit...

...to heal people or to get strength and wisdom for an interview, you are perfectly normally.

If you call upon the supernatural powers of the Goddess or Mother Earth, you are a heathen witch and must be burned at the stake.

(Yeah....makes a lot of sense to me too)

:shrug:

[sutz12]

18. But, but, that's not "magic"...them's miralcles!

:sarcasm:

Did I really need that?

[Skittles]

13. hilarious how they pick and choose which fantasies to embrace

and which ones to condemn :o

[LeftyMom]

4. Emptying the book depository is "arduous"?

Uh, she's a librarian. Moving books around is her job, not a punishment for being a fundamentalpatient. If she can't do that, she should take a medical retirement.

[ColbertWatcher]

11. For an old person it might be.

It depends on how much bending over and walking is involved. Although I think a Southern Baptist would be offended by books in general.

Being old, I know of what I speak.

Now, get off my lawn.

[Hobarticus]

16. "Offended by books in general"....

You owe me a keyboard, smarty pants.

[ColbertWatcher]

19. It is a threat to America...

[Fox Mulder]

8. I worked in a library and getting books out of the book drop-off box...

was part of the job.

If you can't do your job, then you shouldn't be working.

[Bluebear]

10. 'like emptying out a book drop-off box, upon her return' - which is what librarians do.

No?

[Liberal Veteran]

12. Next up: Woman pharmacy tech refused to sell birth control and was punished....

...by being asked to check in and put away the delivery from the pharmaceutical warehouses and they even made her COUNT PILLS!!!!

[RadiationTherapy]

22. No.

[Bluebear]

38. Care to explain? Who empties the book return, the Book Fairy?

[RadiationTherapy]

39. Often it is student employees or aides.

Librarians are busy cataloging and helping people research the accumulated knowledge of humankind.

[LanternWaste]

42. Well, no....

Well, no (at least not in the branch library I worked at just after HS). Librarians left the grunt work (emptying drop-off bin, shelving and re shelving books, etc.) to the Pages.

[Selatius]

17. I'm surprised the damn woman didn't burn the book deposit box rather than empty it out.

Rather than read books, fundamentalists like to burn them.

[HuffleClaw]

21. "arduous tasks, like emptying out a book drop-off box" !!!

bwhaahhahhahhaa

that is not an 'arduous task'


i'd like to know more details about this tale

[Dorian Gray]

23. Her doctor recommended that she quit....

so now she wants something for nothing.

I don't know.... I don't trust law suits like this most of the time. Perhaps she was unfairly treated. It's possible. But, I have a feeling she's making mountains out of molehills.

[gollygee]

24. I wonder if emptying the book drop-off box is really an "arduous task" or a punishment

I worked in a library for a long time and it isn't that big of a deal to empty the drop-off box. You put books on a cart and then wheel the cart around. That part seems like exaggeration. If she couldn't handle moving books around, she couldn't handle being library support staff in the first place. Library work = moving books around.

But the suspension without pay thing is just wrong. So if that's true, I support her because she shouldn't have been suspended for refusing to work at a Harry Potter event.

[RadiationTherapy]

40. library work does not equal moving books around.

[gollygee]

43. The work of library support staff is shelving books, collecting books, etc.

this sounds like a support staff member, not a librarian.

[MessiahRp]

25. This seems to fall under the same category as pharmacists who refuse to dispense birth control

As in if you're a librarian it is your job to work with books. Period. You don't have to agree with the content of them, just as those pharmacists don't have to personally agree with the medicine they dispense. It's not about your personal agreement with the subject matter. It's about doing your job. Pharmacists dispense prescriptions. Period. They have no right to complain because if they had that right they would be in a position to do something about it and that would make them a doctor.

Librarians dispense books. It doesn't matter if they like what's in the books. I'm fairly certain conservative librarians in the past had similar ojections to Mark Twain. If they want to make objections then they need to get into the publishing field where they could prevent books from hitting the press.

As for the "arduous task" of emptying out book drop-off boxes... that's part of her job. There are drop off boxes outside libraries as well as inside. It's part of the task at hand. No different than a postal worker or a video store worker in that regard.

Maybe librarian was too difficult a job for this woman.

Oh and there's a lot of reasons to dislike Harry Potter... JK Rowling's never-ending greed, the annoyance of the characters, the obvious similiarities to Tolkien's work.... but fear that it's promoting witchcraft is about the dumbest one of them all.

Rp

[proud2BlibKansan]

26. I have to teach the children of republicans

As much as I would rather all my students come from Democratic families, I don't get to pick who is enrolled in my class.

[gollygee]

27. I agree that a library worker shouldn't get to pick and choose which books to check out to people

but in this case it isn't that she wasn't willing to check the book out to people. She didn't want to work at an event specifically about a Harry Potter book. So it would be more like a pharmacist who didn't want to work at an event about the morning-after pill, not a pharmacist who wasn't willing to sell it to people. I feel strongly that pharmacists should have to sell whatever is in stock at their pharmacy, but I don't have a problem with a pharmacist not working at an event about the morning after pill if they think it causes abortions and have an issue with that.

I agree about the library drop-off box though. I've had that job and it is hardly an "arduous task". You have to pick up books, put them on a cart, and wheel the cart around. That's very similar to every other support job in the library - moving books from one place to another and pushing carts of books around. If you cant move books around, you aren't fit to work in a support position at a library.

[supernova]

28. It depends on

how severe her heart condition is. If you have heart failure and need a pacemaker, even the mildest of tasks for others can seem like climbing Mt Everest to you. I know this feeling intimately.

My guess is there are two things going on here:

1) She didn't want to work the HP event. OK. I agree she shouldn't have had to do that.

2) The returns bin might really be too much for her now that she has a bonafide heart condition. Or atleast until she adjusts to it and/or meds she's taking for it. Or it's a permanent status and she has to reevaluate her job situation and maybe find something less physically demanding. (edit: and she is in denial about the severity of her health situation.)

[madinmaryland]

31. There is a big difference between "dispensing a book" and having

to actively promote a book, which is what she was asked to do. And I do not see the comparison to pharmacists as an accurate comparison. Are pharmacists required to "promote" drugs??

[MessiahRp]

32. Actually they do. From the pins they wear, the pens they give out...

Pharmacists just as Doctors, are actively pimping for pharmaceutical companies regularly.

Rp

[The Straight Story]

33. So if it was the 'Left Behind Series' and she was muslim/atheist/etc and didn't go

should the same thing have happened?

[Hugabear]

35. Why would she choose to work at such an evil, vile place?

Would she refuse to wait on someone who wanted to check out a Harry Potter book? Or any other book that she deems "sinful"?

[blondeatlast]

36. Key word here: "PROMOTE." As an ex-library employee, this could run the gamut.

Was it a Summer Reading Program event? If that's the case (and with the spotty info we have, that's what I'm guessing), sorry, ma'am; no sympathy.

Was it targeted to Harry Potter fans? Then I find no problem in letting her perform other tasks.

In addition, if she can't empty a book drop, weeeeeeeelll...

[Ian David]

45. I am sure there were toilets that needed cleaning that day SOMEWHERE in the building. n/t

[BlooInBloo]

46. I must be missing something - it sounds like the pharmacist issue to me...

If you can't do the job, you shouldn't have the job.

What am I missing?