photo by: Shawn Valverde

The bookmobile is parked outside the Lawrence Public Library on Friday, July 26, 2024, ahead of the library's celebration of the 10th anniversary of its building.

The Lawrence Public Library Board of Trustees on Monday unanimously approved a new free speech policy that aims to ensure activities ranging from protests to panhandling won’t “interfere with study and enjoyment” of the library’s users.

The board approved the new free speech policy along with updating its public event policies and reservable room policies to better align them with the new policy.

James Pavisian, the secretary and treasurer for the board of trustees, helped draft the free speech policy. He said it would highlight that the library is a limited public forum, and that restrictions could be imposed on speech that would interfere with other people’s use of the library.

Pavisian said the changes to its public event policies and reservable room policies were to clarify exemptions for speakers during public events or organizations or people that reserved rooms with the library. Those new policies, which were designed to be content neutral, were updated to ensure that designated speakers during public events or a group meeting in a reserved room were not fully bound by the free speech policy.

“Before, we didn’t have that language, so the two would have been competing with each other (with the updated policies),” Pavisian said.

The policy outlines what it considers free speech activities — including, but not limited to, holding or carrying signs, protesting, using expressive conduct or speech, distributing literature, acting as a public speaker, panhandling and requesting signatures, donations or contributions. It states that the library will not permit these activities inside the building if they “would interfere with study and enjoyment of visitors of the Library.”

Speakers would be able to conduct those activities outside of the building, but would not be allowed to block access to the library at any time.

The policy states that the library will first provide a warning to a person who violates the policy. If the person continues to violate the policy, they will be asked to leave the premises. If they refuse to leave, the library will notify police that they are trespassing and tell the person that the police have been notified. Library staff must then document the violation in a database by the end of the next business day.

Max Kautsch, an attorney who specializes in First Amendment rights who also helped the library work on the policy, said, the interest the library serves is reading, studying and using library materials. To better serve its main interest, Kautsch said content neutral regulations are the way the library can ensure its users can enjoy the main purpose while adding those exemptions so the public has other channels to express those free speech rights.

“It can’t be a free-for-all,” Kautsch said.

Brad Allen, the executive director of the library, said this was how the library and its staff currently was operating but the library didn’t have the benefit of a written policy. The new policy, he said, clarifies the library’s stance, and matches guidance from the American Library Association.

Pavisian said that most of the time, there have been no issues with disruptions at the library, but that after protests at events related to LGBTQ issues, the library felt it needed to outline a clear policy on speech.

As the Journal-World has reported, Justin Spiehs, a frequent protester and commenter at public meetings, filed a federal lawsuit against the library board in 2023 alleging that library staff violated his free speech rights during two LGBTQ-related events at the library.

The suit, which names multiple library employees in addition to the board, alleges that Spiehs attended the two public events at the library in 2023 carrying signs and was asked by police and library security personnel to leave. At one event, which was about how new state laws affected gender markers for transgender people, the suit says police were called after Spiehs arrived, “and it was determined that Mr. Spiehs’ sign was ‘obscene'” and that he could not be at the library with the sign; he exited the building after police arrived. At the other event, which featured a drag performer reading books aloud, the suit claims that Spiehs was told by security that he couldn’t cause a disruption at the event, and he left when two law enforcement officers showed up at the library.

Spiehs made public comment at Monday’s library board meeting, arguing that the policies were viewpoint discrimination and could potentially be unconstitutional because the policy is “so broad.”