Campbell County has agreed to pay $700,000 to Terri Lesley, its former library director, according to a settlement agreement shared with Wyoming Public Radio.
Lesley alleged in a lawsuit filed earlier this year that the county removed her for defending LGBTQ+ materials. The county denied her allegations.
"It's been a really long journey," Lesley said. "It's been hard, very hard, to go through, and it just feels glorious to be past it and to have what I feel is the right resolution."
Lesley had worked in the Campbell County Public Library System for almost 30 years, serving as its executive director for more than a decade. She became the target of angry local activists for recognizing Pride Month in a 2021 social media post and later refusing to remove books about LGBTQ+ youth from the children's section.
"I just wanted to do what any librarian would do in my shoes and just protect the access," Lesley said. "But as things went along, it got tougher and tougher. We had two years of conflict on this topic.
In 2023, she was fired. Lesley sued the government officials who removed her, as well as those who failed to stop her removal. She alleged county leaders violated her free speech rights when they acquiesced to "a small fraction of the community" who "relentlessly and maliciously mischaracterized" her.
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