A small-town Texas school board member who believes there are pornographic books in the school library was censured by the other trustees of Granbury Independent School District Aug. 23.
Trustee Karen Lowery — who ran for office last fall on a crusade against “smut” in school libraries — was caught along with another woman searching the Granbury High School library with a flashlight Aug. 2.
Two weeks later, all but one of her school board colleagues voted to censure her for making the unauthorized visit to the library. Some speakers at the board meeting urged Lowery to resign.
Karen Lowery in screenshot from video posted online by WFAA-TV.
She replied: “‘Vengeance is mine, and recompense,’ says the Lord. Board president, superintendent, board and audience: I am not going anywhere.”
Lowery is among a significant number of hyper-conservative school board members elected in districts across the country in the past two years as part of a national movement to oppose Critical Race Theory, LGBTQ inclusion and diversity and inclusion programs. The movement, which has been coordinated by a group affiliated with Focus on the Family, has both religious and political roots.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2020 called out an undefined version of Critical Race Theory as something conservatives ought to oppose, and many evangelical Christians joined the campaign. Months before Trump’s comment, the Southern Baptist Convention had adopted a resolution on Critical Race Theory.
As that snowball rolled down the hill, LGBTQ inclusion got added to the mix. And public school libraries and librarians became Enemy No. 1.
USA Today ran a national analysis of school board elections last fall and found the multi-million-dollar effort produced mixed results. “Some school boards that have become conservative-leaning will have an easier time banning books and history-related curriculum and advancing policies that challenge the wellbeing and safety of LGBTQ youth.”
One Arkansas politician’s wife had bragged about removing objectionable books from Free Little Libraries.
Earlier this month, The Daily Beast reported one Arkansas politician’s wife had bragged about removing objectionable books from Free Little Libraries and replacing it with Christian literature, including Bibles.
“I have been swapping out books in little free libraries for a while,” Jennifer Meeks said in a now-deleted Facebook post. “From what I have seen a lot of these books and other things don’t align with Christian values.”
Some of the new hyper-conservative school board members bring questionable credentials to their roles overseeing educational enterprises.
In Granbury, which is located southwest of Fort Worth, Lowery and another new board member have made curious comments at board meetings.
During a July 19 executive session of the board, Lowery complained about a library website touting a book that won a Stonewall Award.
“Stonewall is a bar in New York,” she said. “We have opened the door for the evil to come through.”
The Stonewall Book Award is a project of the American Library Association to recognize books that give voice to the LGBTQ experience. The Stonewall Inn is a gay bar and tavern in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan and the site of the Stonewall riots of 1969, which launched the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the United States.
Melanie Graft
Granbury trustee Melanie Graft was the only other board member to side with Lowery in the 5-2 censure vote.
According to KERA radio in Dallas, Graft questioned who had conducted the investigation into Lowery’s visit to the library, which had been detailed in the meeting already.
“I can explain it again, but I can’t understand it for you.”
Superintendent Jeremy K. Glenn said, “I can explain it again, but I can’t understand it for you.”
Graft was elected to the school board in 2021 on the campaign slogan, “Education, not indoctrination,” a common theme of the anti-Critical Race Theory movement.
Even Lowery doesn’t deny she visited the high school library to search for objectionable books. Although at one point the trustee told a high school assistant principal she was there at the request of the superintendent, the superintendent denied that was the case.
According to the official school board report, Lowery checked in at the school’s front office the morning of Aug. 2, accompanied by a woman named Carolyn Reeves, who had signed in to visit the school cafeteria, where a school supplies event was taking place.
Surveillance video shows the two women entering the library at 9:25 a.m., having taken a circuitous route to get there.
Assistant Principal Danny Guidry saw the two women in the library in the dark about 5 minutes later. He asked if they needed help. That’s when Lowery reportedly said the superintendent had sent her to look at books.
The duo stayed in the library more than an hour, not leaving until 10:50 a.m., according to the video.
School board policies require board members to schedule appointment with campus principals if they visit school buildings. Lowery said she had called about 25 minutes before her arrival to let the principal know she was coming.
She called the investigation against her library snooping a “witch hunt” and said the board and superintendent were “harassing and bullying” her.
Granbury is a deeply conservative town both politically and religiously, with 81% of residents of Hood County voting for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
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