By Kim Kozlowski
Bridge Michigan
This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. Visit the newsroom online: bridgemi.com.
Christine Beachler has loved her 38-year career, mostly as a librarian in Lowell Area Schools, a K-12 school district on the west side of the state. But she’s found herself the unwitting target of a culture war over book bans that she says has included “abusive” social media posts, “outrageous” false accusations and a viral video that led to death threats.
After five years, Beachler is fighting back in court. But she says her battle is not about what students should and shouldn’t read.
“This lawsuit is not about book bans,” said Beachler, 57. “This (behavior) is going on in other districts in Michigan and across the country. I felt like it was time for an educator to stand up against it.”
According to a civil lawsuit she filed in May in Kent County Circuit Court and later amended, the situation started in 2020 when a campaign began to remove books from the Lowell school libraries.
Leading the campaign, according to the lawsuit, was Stefanie Boone, a parent affiliated with Moms for Liberty, a national parental rights organization known for challenging books with themes it finds inappropriate. Boone opposed library books including those with LGBTQ+ themes, calling them “pornography,” the lawsuit says.
Beachler — the library media director for the Lowell district, which has fewer than 4,000 students — alleges that Boone has engaged in a smear campaign against her with numerous, ongoing social media posts referring to Beachler with disparaging labels such as a “pedo” or pedophile and “porn-peddling” librarian.
The lawsuit also alleges that Boone posted online a video she filmed during a school library tour with on-screen text asking where the “porn section” was. It says the video was shared numerous times and viewed by more than a million people, with some viewers calling for violence against Beachler.
Beachler is seeking unspecified damages, the removal of any online posts containing her name, photo and false claims, and for future behavior to stop.
Neither Boone nor her attorney responded to numerous requests from Bridge Michigan for comment. Boone’s attorney is Matt DePerno, who is facing felony charges for allegedly tampering with voting machines in a hotel room in 2020. The Republican made an unsuccessful run for Michigan attorney general in 2022 and is planning a second run. Last week, DePerno sought to delay a professional misconduct hearing that could jeopardize his law license and bid for state office.
DePerno has filed motions to get Beachler’s lawsuit dismissed, but the court has let the lawsuit stand.
Last week, DePerno filed a response to Beachler’s amended lawsuit and filed a counterclaim against her, accusing the librarian of waging a defamation campaign against Boone and highlighting Boone’s parental rights under state law and the First Amendment.
The counterclaim describes Boone as a certified teacher and mother of six children who is actively involved in their education.
It alleges that Beachler introduces “Pride Storybooks … to promote her own political agenda” and those books “groom children through DEI, SEL, social justice issues, alternate sex and one-sided gender ideologies, and other liberal political ideology … encourage gender transitioning and focus excessively on romantic infatuation — with no meaningful parental notification or opportunity to opt out.”
In her legal filing, Boone alleges that Beachler has used “offensive and inappropriate language” when discussing her in interviews and podcasts and has “used her influence” to have Boone’s Facebook pages taken down.
Beachler said the counterclaim “has absolutely no merit. I look forward to addressing these ridiculous allegations through the court.”
In an interview with Bridge Michigan before the counterclaim was filed, Beachler said she decided to sue after Boone’s alleged attacks became relentless and her efforts to stop them failed. Supporters have since raised nearly $60,000 to fund her legal costs on gofundme.com.
She emphasized that the lawsuit is not about library books or parents’ rights.
“It’s about the truth of what has been said,” said Beachler. “It’s about human decency and treating others with respect when you have a differing opinion with them … Calling people names and constantly insulting them and denigrating them and dehumanizing somebody to the point where you are inciting hatred and anger and threats against a person is what my lawsuit is about. And that’s what’s happened to me.”
—————
Librarians under fire
Beachler’s lawsuit is among a half-dozen filed nationally by librarians who say they have been harassed by parental rights groups, said Sara Hoeve, who’s researching the groups and their impact on educators while serving as director of student teaching and certification at Hope College in Holland. Other librarians across the country also are facing attacks but have not taken legal steps.
The actions allegedly directed at Beachler stand apart as “it is the most targeted attack on a person and one of the most vicious and long-lasting,” Hoeve said.
“She has had almost five years of daily (social media) posts that have called her a ‘groomer,’ ‘pedophile,’ ‘smut peddler,’” said Hoeve. “There’s been video posted, her photo, her phone number, comments about her family finances. She has been harassed at a family gathering at a park. She’s received death threats.”
Parental rights groups have been around for years, Hoeve said, and started when former President Ronald Reagan was in office and when some parents wanted to be able to “opt out” of certain topics such as evolution. A new breed of parental groups, rooted in Christian nationalism, emerged during COVID-19 concerned with mask mandates and curriculum content, Hoeve said. But instead of opting out, they want all children in public schools to “opt in” before being presented with curriculum or books that parents find offensive.
—————
How dispute began
Boone is affiliated with a local chapter of Moms for Liberty, a group founded in 2021 by two former school board members in Florida. The organization fights for parents’ fundamental right “to direct the education, medical care, and moral upbringing of their children,” according to its website. Boone has three sons enrolled in the Lowell Area Schools and two sons who graduated from the district and a daughter who graduated from another school.
Boone has led unsuccessful campaigns to recall members of education boards in Forest Hills and Lowell schools and ran a failed bid for a seat on the Kent County Commission, Beachler’s lawsuit says. In 2020, Boone began a campaign to remove books from Lowell schools and started reading “salacious excerpts from books” at school board meetings and calling books she disapproves of “pornography,” Beachler’s lawsuit says.
According to the filing, Boone’s activities included sending a note to the Lowell schools media center stating that her children should not have access to anything “inappropriate” but did not follow procedure or specify what she meant, the lawsuit says. She also allegedly has made numerous posts on social media pages, with tens of thousands of followers, “targeting and making false accusations” against Beachler and discussed them with “right-wing media.”
Beachler alleges that In 2022, Boone posted a picture of Beachler that referred to her as a “smut-peddling media specialist” who was “purposefully pushing divisive topics onto our children” and urged people to hold the librarian “accountable.” She’s also called the librarian a “pedo” (short for pedophile) and “groomer.” according to the lawsuit.
“Defendant Boone asserts that, by providing books of which Defendant Boone disapproves, Plaintiff has engaged in grooming behaviors,” the lawsuit says. “Defendant Boone is aware of the meaning of the term groomer and has intentionally created the false impression that Plaintiff engages in behaviors designed to abuse children. “
After Lowell Police Department told Defendant Boone told Boone that approval of a book is not a crime and the Kent County prosecutor refused to prosecute, Boone “ refused to stop making false accusations the against Plaintiff,” the lawsuit says.
Beachler said she sent Boone a letter in 2023 to stop making false accusations against her and demanded that they be removed from social media but Boone refused and escalated her activities, the lawsuit says.
—————
‘I have the right’
When Beachler filed the lawsuit in May, Boone released a statement to a Grand Rapids television station, saying she does not “condone violence or extremism toward an individual simply because of a difference of opinion.”
“As an experienced educator and a mother of 6, I have the unique advantage of seeing all perspectives within the world of education,” said Boone’s statement, in part. “I will always stand for parental rights and transparency in education, as is the law in Michigan, no matter which lens I view it through.
“I have consistently stated that my efforts toward transparency within our public schools are not personal, although some individuals may see it that way.”
Boone also discussed the lawsuit this month on the Grassroots Army podcast, hosted by Garrett Soldano, a vocal critic of COVID-era mask mandates and lockdowns who ran for Michigan governor in 2022.
She said the parents standing up to mandates during COVID sparked a movement. She started asking questions about books in the library that included LGBTQ+ content, anti-police, anti-racism “rhetoric”. She said when she questioned Beachler about it, Beachler responded that she was doing her job and refused to answer questions.
Boone said she got a cease and desist letter from the Lowell school officials that told her she was no longer allowed to not talk with her children’s teachers or post anything online about the school district.
“You can’t tell someone what they can and can’t say,” said Boone. “I have parental rights. I have the right and it’s the law in Michigan that parents are to direct the care and education of our children in public schools.”
—————
Fear, frustration
After spending her career in Lowell schools, Beachler no longer feels safe where she works. She’s sought counseling, which has helped, and felt the support of most of the Lowell area schools community. But the ongoing situation, she said, has taken a toll on her.
“It’s made me very fearful to go to work,” said Beachler. “It’s made me lose some of the love of my job. I have always loved my job. I’ve enjoyed the kids and the families and Lowell and it’s just made everything much more complicated and I am very fearful.”
Beachler is a native of Lake Odessa, a neighboring district of Lowell Area Schools. She married a man who grew up in Lowell, and their two children graduated from Lowell schools. Beachler began her career as a student teacher in Lowell area schools, then was hired as a teacher when she was 20. She switched to being a school librarian 25 years ago.
What’s been happening to her for the past five years has been difficult on her and her family, she said, because everyone knows everyone in the community and it’s not how she envisioned the end of her career.
She said she works every day with students to help them choose library books that work for them. As for the books that others disapprove of, she is not the one who decides which books are removed from the libraries. That decision is up to the school board.
She says the campaign in Lowell is part of “a playbook” that parents opposed to certain books use and she has seen in other Michigan communities and across the nation. The behavior toward her hasn’t stopped even with the filing of her lawsuit and it’s “really frustrating,” she said.
“It just continued to be something that is a huge disruption to the education process at Lowell schools,” Beachler said. “It’s abusive behavior toward our staff, and directed at me, manufacturing a problem that we don’t really have.”
Parents have a right to challenge books in a library, which they did in Lowell, but a committee reviewed two books, “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson and “The Sun and her Flowers” by Rupi Kaur. Then the committee made a recommendation to the superintendent and the board not to remove them, Beachler said.
“What many people, including the defendants, are ignoring, is that they don’t have the right to choose for other people’s children,” Beachler said.
Carrie Vonderheide, a Lowell resident who has three children in the school district and one who recently graduated, said there’s so much support for Beachler but there is social media chaos being created in the community by people who don’t even live there or have children in the school district.
“It’s costing taxpayers money and it’s making a spectacle of our district,” said Vonderheide, who contributed to Beachler’s gofundme campaign to help pay legal costs.”It is coming after years and years of a smear campaign. I don’t blame her for saying enough is enough. I do hope she wins.”
Beachler said her lawsuit is for other schools and librarians that are also facing challenges in Michigan and across the country. That’s why she’s participated in two documentaries about the issue.
But the lawsuit is also for her, and the career she built over the years in Lowell.
“I would like to have my life back,” Beachler said. “I would like to be able to work with the kids and the distraction and the smear campaign to end.”
Bridge Michigan
This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. Visit the newsroom online: bridgemi.com.
Christine Beachler has loved her 38-year career, mostly as a librarian in Lowell Area Schools, a K-12 school district on the west side of the state. But she’s found herself the unwitting target of a culture war over book bans that she says has included “abusive” social media posts, “outrageous” false accusations and a viral video that led to death threats.
After five years, Beachler is fighting back in court. But she says her battle is not about what students should and shouldn’t read.
“This lawsuit is not about book bans,” said Beachler, 57. “This (behavior) is going on in other districts in Michigan and across the country. I felt like it was time for an educator to stand up against it.”
According to a civil lawsuit she filed in May in Kent County Circuit Court and later amended, the situation started in 2020 when a campaign began to remove books from the Lowell school libraries.
Leading the campaign, according to the lawsuit, was Stefanie Boone, a parent affiliated with Moms for Liberty, a national parental rights organization known for challenging books with themes it finds inappropriate. Boone opposed library books including those with LGBTQ+ themes, calling them “pornography,” the lawsuit says.
Beachler — the library media director for the Lowell district, which has fewer than 4,000 students — alleges that Boone has engaged in a smear campaign against her with numerous, ongoing social media posts referring to Beachler with disparaging labels such as a “pedo” or pedophile and “porn-peddling” librarian.
The lawsuit also alleges that Boone posted online a video she filmed during a school library tour with on-screen text asking where the “porn section” was. It says the video was shared numerous times and viewed by more than a million people, with some viewers calling for violence against Beachler.
Beachler is seeking unspecified damages, the removal of any online posts containing her name, photo and false claims, and for future behavior to stop.
Neither Boone nor her attorney responded to numerous requests from Bridge Michigan for comment. Boone’s attorney is Matt DePerno, who is facing felony charges for allegedly tampering with voting machines in a hotel room in 2020. The Republican made an unsuccessful run for Michigan attorney general in 2022 and is planning a second run. Last week, DePerno sought to delay a professional misconduct hearing that could jeopardize his law license and bid for state office.
DePerno has filed motions to get Beachler’s lawsuit dismissed, but the court has let the lawsuit stand.
Last week, DePerno filed a response to Beachler’s amended lawsuit and filed a counterclaim against her, accusing the librarian of waging a defamation campaign against Boone and highlighting Boone’s parental rights under state law and the First Amendment.
The counterclaim describes Boone as a certified teacher and mother of six children who is actively involved in their education.
It alleges that Beachler introduces “Pride Storybooks … to promote her own political agenda” and those books “groom children through DEI, SEL, social justice issues, alternate sex and one-sided gender ideologies, and other liberal political ideology … encourage gender transitioning and focus excessively on romantic infatuation — with no meaningful parental notification or opportunity to opt out.”
In her legal filing, Boone alleges that Beachler has used “offensive and inappropriate language” when discussing her in interviews and podcasts and has “used her influence” to have Boone’s Facebook pages taken down.
Beachler said the counterclaim “has absolutely no merit. I look forward to addressing these ridiculous allegations through the court.”
In an interview with Bridge Michigan before the counterclaim was filed, Beachler said she decided to sue after Boone’s alleged attacks became relentless and her efforts to stop them failed. Supporters have since raised nearly $60,000 to fund her legal costs on gofundme.com.
She emphasized that the lawsuit is not about library books or parents’ rights.
“It’s about the truth of what has been said,” said Beachler. “It’s about human decency and treating others with respect when you have a differing opinion with them … Calling people names and constantly insulting them and denigrating them and dehumanizing somebody to the point where you are inciting hatred and anger and threats against a person is what my lawsuit is about. And that’s what’s happened to me.”
—————
Librarians under fire
Beachler’s lawsuit is among a half-dozen filed nationally by librarians who say they have been harassed by parental rights groups, said Sara Hoeve, who’s researching the groups and their impact on educators while serving as director of student teaching and certification at Hope College in Holland. Other librarians across the country also are facing attacks but have not taken legal steps.
The actions allegedly directed at Beachler stand apart as “it is the most targeted attack on a person and one of the most vicious and long-lasting,” Hoeve said.
“She has had almost five years of daily (social media) posts that have called her a ‘groomer,’ ‘pedophile,’ ‘smut peddler,’” said Hoeve. “There’s been video posted, her photo, her phone number, comments about her family finances. She has been harassed at a family gathering at a park. She’s received death threats.”
Parental rights groups have been around for years, Hoeve said, and started when former President Ronald Reagan was in office and when some parents wanted to be able to “opt out” of certain topics such as evolution. A new breed of parental groups, rooted in Christian nationalism, emerged during COVID-19 concerned with mask mandates and curriculum content, Hoeve said. But instead of opting out, they want all children in public schools to “opt in” before being presented with curriculum or books that parents find offensive.
—————
How dispute began
Boone is affiliated with a local chapter of Moms for Liberty, a group founded in 2021 by two former school board members in Florida. The organization fights for parents’ fundamental right “to direct the education, medical care, and moral upbringing of their children,” according to its website. Boone has three sons enrolled in the Lowell Area Schools and two sons who graduated from the district and a daughter who graduated from another school.
Boone has led unsuccessful campaigns to recall members of education boards in Forest Hills and Lowell schools and ran a failed bid for a seat on the Kent County Commission, Beachler’s lawsuit says. In 2020, Boone began a campaign to remove books from Lowell schools and started reading “salacious excerpts from books” at school board meetings and calling books she disapproves of “pornography,” Beachler’s lawsuit says.
According to the filing, Boone’s activities included sending a note to the Lowell schools media center stating that her children should not have access to anything “inappropriate” but did not follow procedure or specify what she meant, the lawsuit says. She also allegedly has made numerous posts on social media pages, with tens of thousands of followers, “targeting and making false accusations” against Beachler and discussed them with “right-wing media.”
Beachler alleges that In 2022, Boone posted a picture of Beachler that referred to her as a “smut-peddling media specialist” who was “purposefully pushing divisive topics onto our children” and urged people to hold the librarian “accountable.” She’s also called the librarian a “pedo” (short for pedophile) and “groomer.” according to the lawsuit.
“Defendant Boone asserts that, by providing books of which Defendant Boone disapproves, Plaintiff has engaged in grooming behaviors,” the lawsuit says. “Defendant Boone is aware of the meaning of the term groomer and has intentionally created the false impression that Plaintiff engages in behaviors designed to abuse children. “
After Lowell Police Department told Defendant Boone told Boone that approval of a book is not a crime and the Kent County prosecutor refused to prosecute, Boone “ refused to stop making false accusations the against Plaintiff,” the lawsuit says.
Beachler said she sent Boone a letter in 2023 to stop making false accusations against her and demanded that they be removed from social media but Boone refused and escalated her activities, the lawsuit says.
—————
‘I have the right’
When Beachler filed the lawsuit in May, Boone released a statement to a Grand Rapids television station, saying she does not “condone violence or extremism toward an individual simply because of a difference of opinion.”
“As an experienced educator and a mother of 6, I have the unique advantage of seeing all perspectives within the world of education,” said Boone’s statement, in part. “I will always stand for parental rights and transparency in education, as is the law in Michigan, no matter which lens I view it through.
“I have consistently stated that my efforts toward transparency within our public schools are not personal, although some individuals may see it that way.”
Boone also discussed the lawsuit this month on the Grassroots Army podcast, hosted by Garrett Soldano, a vocal critic of COVID-era mask mandates and lockdowns who ran for Michigan governor in 2022.
She said the parents standing up to mandates during COVID sparked a movement. She started asking questions about books in the library that included LGBTQ+ content, anti-police, anti-racism “rhetoric”. She said when she questioned Beachler about it, Beachler responded that she was doing her job and refused to answer questions.
Boone said she got a cease and desist letter from the Lowell school officials that told her she was no longer allowed to not talk with her children’s teachers or post anything online about the school district.
“You can’t tell someone what they can and can’t say,” said Boone. “I have parental rights. I have the right and it’s the law in Michigan that parents are to direct the care and education of our children in public schools.”
—————
Fear, frustration
After spending her career in Lowell schools, Beachler no longer feels safe where she works. She’s sought counseling, which has helped, and felt the support of most of the Lowell area schools community. But the ongoing situation, she said, has taken a toll on her.
“It’s made me very fearful to go to work,” said Beachler. “It’s made me lose some of the love of my job. I have always loved my job. I’ve enjoyed the kids and the families and Lowell and it’s just made everything much more complicated and I am very fearful.”
Beachler is a native of Lake Odessa, a neighboring district of Lowell Area Schools. She married a man who grew up in Lowell, and their two children graduated from Lowell schools. Beachler began her career as a student teacher in Lowell area schools, then was hired as a teacher when she was 20. She switched to being a school librarian 25 years ago.
What’s been happening to her for the past five years has been difficult on her and her family, she said, because everyone knows everyone in the community and it’s not how she envisioned the end of her career.
She said she works every day with students to help them choose library books that work for them. As for the books that others disapprove of, she is not the one who decides which books are removed from the libraries. That decision is up to the school board.
She says the campaign in Lowell is part of “a playbook” that parents opposed to certain books use and she has seen in other Michigan communities and across the nation. The behavior toward her hasn’t stopped even with the filing of her lawsuit and it’s “really frustrating,” she said.
“It just continued to be something that is a huge disruption to the education process at Lowell schools,” Beachler said. “It’s abusive behavior toward our staff, and directed at me, manufacturing a problem that we don’t really have.”
Parents have a right to challenge books in a library, which they did in Lowell, but a committee reviewed two books, “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson and “The Sun and her Flowers” by Rupi Kaur. Then the committee made a recommendation to the superintendent and the board not to remove them, Beachler said.
“What many people, including the defendants, are ignoring, is that they don’t have the right to choose for other people’s children,” Beachler said.
Carrie Vonderheide, a Lowell resident who has three children in the school district and one who recently graduated, said there’s so much support for Beachler but there is social media chaos being created in the community by people who don’t even live there or have children in the school district.
“It’s costing taxpayers money and it’s making a spectacle of our district,” said Vonderheide, who contributed to Beachler’s gofundme campaign to help pay legal costs.”It is coming after years and years of a smear campaign. I don’t blame her for saying enough is enough. I do hope she wins.”
Beachler said her lawsuit is for other schools and librarians that are also facing challenges in Michigan and across the country. That’s why she’s participated in two documentaries about the issue.
But the lawsuit is also for her, and the career she built over the years in Lowell.
“I would like to have my life back,” Beachler said. “I would like to be able to work with the kids and the distraction and the smear campaign to end.”
––––––––––––––––––––
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