A school librarian in Louisiana filed a lawsuit against two men for allegedly defaming her when they accused her of being a pedophile for supporting the teaching of books involving the LGBTQ community.
According to NBC News, Amanda Jones, a middle school librarian and the president of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians, filed a defamation lawsuit Wednesday, arguing that Facebook pages run by Michael Lunsford and Ryan Thames falsely labeled her a pedophile who wants to teach 11-year-olds about anal sex.
The attacks against her began after she spoke out against removing certain books from the Livingston Parish Library system at a board meeting.
“The citizens of our parish consist of taxpayers who are white, Black, brown, gay, straight, Christian, non-Christian — people from all backgrounds and walks of life, and no one portion of the community should dictate what the rest of the citizens have access to,” Jones said at the meeting, according to NBC News . “Just because you don’t want to read it or see it, it doesn’t give you the right to deny others or demand its relocation.”
According to the lawsuit, three days after the meeting, a conservative activist group called Citizens for a New Louisiana, run by Lunsford posted Jones’ image on their Facebook page and asked: “why is she fighting so hard to keep sexually erotic and pornographic materials in the kid’s section?”
The lawsuit says Jones’ photo in the post is surrounded by a red circle with a white border and looked like to a target.
Lunsford also commented on the post saying Jones is on the “public payroll” and is “’advocating’ for having erotica in the kids section.”
The account made several other posts throughout July and August and tagged Jones. A post on August 7th states she believes “that sharing erotica and instructing juveniles on sex acts is progressive.”
The suit says Lunsford also submitted five (5) public information request to Jones’ school, demanding access to her personnel file and her emails and said he planned to visit her workplace.
At the same time, another Facebook page run by Thames called ‘Bayou State of Mind’ was also attacking Jones, the suit says. Thames allegedly created and posted memes with Jones smiling and sitting at a desk saying she is “advocating teaching anal sex to 11-year-olds.”
Facebook eventually took down the post but Thames continued to publicly mock and ridicule her.
The lawsuit states that the posts have damaged Jones’ reputation and incited expressions of violence against her. They also caused her to suffer anxiety and emotional distress.
Jones is seeking damages and asks a judge to issue a restraining order to prevent the two activists from speaking about her publicly. She has also filed criminal complaints against the men with the local sheriff’s office.
Jones told NBC that she’s suing the conservative activists because she’s exhausted with the constant attacks on educators and librarians over LGBTQ materials.
“I’ve had enough for everybody. Nobody stands up to these people. They just say what they want and there are no repercussions and they ruin people’s reputations and there’s no consequences ” she said.
“If this takes four or five years, I’m going to fight these people on this,” she added. “Even if I lose, I could say I stood up to them.”
Featured Image: Amanda Jones (Emily Kask for NBC News)