Arlene Quaratiello is an NH House Rep. and local Librarian who ran afoul of the wokeasaurus in Raymond when she dared to exercise her First Amendment right to free speech by supporting a candidate for which her Public Library “betters” did not approve.
Rep. Quaratiello sent a letter to a local newspaper, endorsing conservative candidates for a public library position. She endorsed these candidates because they took the “controversial” position that sexually explicit books should not be in the children’s section of the library.
Arelen, wwho contributes to these pages from time to time, was frog-marched into a meeting with “Director Corbett, a Library trustee, and the town manager.” Betters who, to be honest, are not very bright.
They told her she was terminated “because of [her] lack of separation of personal/political values and agendas from DTL [Dudley-Tucker Library] policies, procedures, and occurrences” and because she was “not able to maintain the separation between personal and Library tenets.” Our client – who is an elected official – asked if this meant that she was terminated for her political activity, and they confirmed it.
Not bright at all. When “asked if this meant that she was terminated for her political activity, and they confirmed it.”
The Library did eventually give her back her job but having obtained the support of the ACLJ, that was just the beginning of the solution to a problem we’ve been visting often in recent weeks. Systemic viewpoint discrimmination in locla municiplaities. It’s something of an empidemic. Town and City officials have a habit of assuming they get to decide who can speak and who cannot and about what. The internal non-public tactics are bad enough. Having to work in such a hostol enviroment with frequent bullying is exhausting. being told you are not entitled to express your opinions at all is simply arrogant. Hubris. And – oh, by the way – unconstitituional
Our lawsuit was about protecting the rights of citizens to speak out about the issues that affect all of us and ensuring a conservative voice can still be heard.
The court’s consent decree, in our case, does exactly that. First, the library is now obligated to publicly admit what it did; the order includes a statement that Arlene was terminated “because she engaged in off duty, public, expressive, political activity, outside the scope of her employment with the Library.”
Second, the library agreed to make the following public statement admitting wrongdoing:
The Dudley-Tucker Library regrets its conduct toward Quaratiello and the violation of Plaintiff Quaratiello’s constitutional rights, and will remind, in writing, all personnel to refrain from engaging in disciplinary activity that punishes the First Amendment activities of employees. The Dudley-Tucker Library and Town of Raymond will take any other actions reasonably necessary to ensure this type of constitutional violation does not occur again.
This is especially important, as governmental entities almost never admit wrongdoing.
Third, the court entered an order that will ensure our client’s rights are protected in the future. This order does the following five things: (1) it declares that the termination of Rep. Quaratiello “for her political activity constituted a violation of her First Amendment rights”; (2) it orders the defendants to expunge any negative documents relating to this incident from their employee files; (3) it enjoins the defendants “from disciplining Plaintiff Quaratiello or other similarly situated employees for off-duty political speech and activity that does not occur using Library resources or time”; (4) it requires the library to “reiterate to all employees that Library policy cannot and does not prohibit employees from engaging in off-duty, constitutionally-protected political activity”; and (5) it requires an addition to the employee handbook acknowledging these fundamental rights.
All necessary to ensure Arlene and eveyrone else is protected, at least formally on paper, from the random fits of melting snowflakes.
I did reach out to Arlene. She assures me that she will have a story to share in the comming days so watch for that.
