Wichita Library Board relaxes background checks required after 2019 drag queen flap
Wichita libraries are dialing back a policy requiring criminal and sex-offender background checks on all program presenters, a rule born two years ago amid the backlash over drag queens reading storybooks.
The relaxed rules approved by the Library Board on Tuesday would still require the checks for presenters of programs aimed at children and teens and presentations involving one-to-one interaction between the presenters and patrons.
But presenters of programs geared to adult groups will no longer have to undergo the background investigation.
The rule change passed the Library Board on a near-unanimous vote with only one board member, Shelby Petersen, voting no. After the meeting she declined to explain her vote.
Library Director Jaime Prothro recommended the changes, saying the background-check requirement has prevented libraries from hosting several worthy community programs, such as a poetry class that includes open-microphone poetry readings.
The rules also were impractical for hosting programs such as 1 Million Cups, a Kauffman Foundation project that encourages small-business owners to present short speeches sharing their experience with other entrepreneurs, she said.
Backgrounding all those people “just wasn’t feasible and we were seeing that we weren’t able to create these community-building experiences,” Prothro said.
The screening policy also would prevent libraries from hosting a planned educational program called “Candid Conversation,” where panels of ex-convicts can talk about criminal justice reform and how they turned their life around after serving time, she said.
She said it doesn’t make much sense to do background checks on those individuals when the library staff already knows they have a criminal background.
“So if you have a sex offender, you’re saying you’re not going to do a criminal background check?” Petersen asked.
Prothro replied: “In our work with our program partner, we’re determining the panelists in alignment with our policy. So the policy does indicate that we wouldn’t work with individuals that have been convicted of sex crimes.”
Library Board member and state Rep. Chuck Schmidt, D-Wichita, spoke in support of the policy change.
“We went through a lot of this a couple years ago with the (drag queen) controversy and I wondered at the time if we didn’t go too far,” he said.
The requirement of background checks for all presenters was put in place in 2019, about a year after the library hosted “Say YAAAS to Reading.”
At that event, men dressed in flamboyant female costumes read storybooks to a standing-room-only audience of more than 200 parents and children.
While the presentation was largely hailed by its attendees, it infuriated some religious conservatives who pressed the board to ban such presentations altogether.
When that effort failed, the background-check rule was proposed by Craig Coffey, pastor of a small church in Derby.
In communications with the Library Board, Coffey blasted the LGBTQ population as “dysfunctional” and “certainly not a healthy model for innocent children.” He also alleged that the library event violated city ordinances banning “public lewd and lascivious behavior, sexual misconduct, and promotion of obscenity to minors.”
Thomas Witt of Equality Kansas said at the time that the demand for background checks was simply a slap at the LBGTQ population, implying that they’re criminals.
There hasn’t been another drag-queen story time since the 2018 event, library officials said.
This story was originally published December 21, 2021 at 3:08 PM.
