A conservative New Hampshire librarian secured a legal victory in a First Amendment dispute with her employer. The Town of Raymond and its Dudley-Tucker Library admitted that they wrongfully terminated librarian Arlene Quaratiello for endorsing, in her private capacity, conservative library trustee candidates opposed to “inappropriate” children’s books.
Quaratiello sued after the library terminated her on April 4, 2023, for endorsing the candidates for library trustee positions at another library, according to Quaratiello’s complaint, filed on October 27, 2023.
Quaratiello, the town, and the library entered into the consent order on June 10, 2024, outlining the town and library’s wrongdoing. The parties agreed that Quaratiello’s termination, despite her reinstatement with backpay on April 25, 2023, violated her constitutional rights.
Four days before the consent order, Quaratiello left her position at the library to pursue teaching at a charter school.
“I am no longer employed at the Dudley-Tucker Library but I left to take a much better job, not to appease my adversaries,” Quaratiello stated in an email to Legal Insurrection, which included a link to her Substack post on the ordeal.
The library admitted that “it regrets its conduct toward Quaratiello and the violation of Plaintiff Quaratiello’s constitutional rights” and agreed to “remind, in writing, all personnel to refrain from engaging in disciplinary activity that punishes the First Amendment activities of employees.”
“We would agree to a comment when the suit is finalized, we receive a copy of the official consent decree, and we are released from liability,” Trustee Chair Jill Galus of the Dudley-Tucker Library told Legal Insurrection.
Galus did not respond to follow-up emails asking whether her office received a copy of the consent order and was willing to comment. The court’s docket shows the case marked “terminated” on June 24.
The consent order requires the library and town to expunge Quaratiello’s record and enjoins them from “disciplining Plaintiff Quaratiello or other similarly situated employees for off-duty political speech and activity.”
The ordeal began when Quaratiello emailed a local Republican Party chapter, urging members to run for library trustee positions. The January 16, 2023, email expresses Quaratiello’s dismay at a “left-leaning display of new books,” including books on transgenderism and gender identity.
The email also criticized the American Library Association for endorsing “woke causes” under the leadership of “a self-described Marxist.”
Quaratiello then wrote a letter to the editor, published on February 27, 2023, that endorsed two library trustee candidates who “believe in protecting our children from the increasing amount of inappropriate material available . . . without sacrificing the intellectual freedom that has always characterized public libraries.”
On April 5, 2023, Quaratiello met with library and city officials, who informed her that she was being terminated from her employment, according to the complaint.
Quaratiello allegedly received “a termination letter at the meeting, dated April 4, 2023, stating, in part, that she was terminated ‘because of [her] lack of separation of personal/political values and agendas from [Dudley-Tucker Library] policies, procedures, and occurrences.'”
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