Applications open for Fresno County’s ‘community standards’ library book review committee

Fresno County residents have one more month to apply for a new, controversial committee charged with reviewing library books to ensure they “meet community standards.”

Books that don’t meet those standards–which the new committee will adopt–won’t be removed from Fresno County Public Libraries, county officials have said. Instead, the books will be available for children to check out with explicit permission from a parent or guardian.

The Community Parent and Guardian Review Committee will “maintain a list of books and materials that have been deemed not to meet community standards and are thereby subject to parental or guardian consent provisions,” according to the committee’s bylaws, which the Board of Supervisors formally adopted March 19.

The bylaws state that the list of not-quite-banned books will be posted at each of the library’s 34 branches across Fresno County.

The ACLU of Northern California opposed the committee in a Nov. 6 letter to the Board of Supervisors outlining numerous potential issues, including that the review committee would disproportionately affect books on reproductive health, gender identity and sexual orientation.

“Courts across the country have found that restricting access to books is a form of censorship and legally is not a different question than book banning or book censoring,” Chessie Thacher, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU, told Fresnoland in an interview in November.

Fresno County Supervisor Steve Brandau has pushed back hard against such criticism of the library book review committee. In an interview with Fresnoland last year, Brandau insisted the resolution creating the committee does not target the LGBTQ+ community.

“I went to great lengths to make sure that I personally wasn’t targeting them,” Brandau told Fresnoland.

Despite those concerns and others voiced in a large letter-writing campaign opposing the committee, the county supervisors narrowly approved the committee on a 3-2 vote. Supervisor Steve Brandau, who led the effort to establish the review board, was supported by Buddy Mendes and Nathan Magsig, while Supervisors Brian Pacheco and Sal Quintero opposed the committee’s formation.

In noting their opposition, Pacheco called the committee a slippery slope while Quintero noted the county library already had a complaint policy for community members who find potentially offensive material.

Each supervisor will appoint two people to the committee and the county’s chief administrative officer will appoint the 11th committee member. Applications for the Community Parent and Guardian Review Committee are available online.

The application period closes April 26, Robert Jeffers, Brandau’s chief of staff, confirmed Tuesday.