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The Westport Library hosted director/producer Kim A. Snyder on November 21, 2025, for a screening of her documentary "The Librarians" as part of the progressive "Fall of Freedom" call to action.
The event included a panel discussion where Snyder spoke alongside fellow producer Maria Cuomo Cole; novelist, playwright, and filmmaker Trey Ellis; StoryFest featured author Oliver Radclyffe; and Connecticut's State Librarian Deborah Schander.
The discussion was framed as "one of the most urgent civil liberties issues of our time" after "an unprecedented wave of book banning" in Texas, Florida, and and other states in which parents are challenging inappropriate and often graphic pornographic books available to minors in libraries.
Librarians are positioned as "unlikely defenders fighting for intellectual freedom on the front lines of democracy" in the documentary.
The NYTimes called the film "profoundly alarming.”
During the panel discussion, Snyder argued that "marginalized communities are the most vulnerable" to "book banning."
"When power wants to be exerted, they go after the weak. And they perceived LGBTQ communities, communities that are fighting to preserve the black experience in America, the Jewish experience in America, that the women and girls, that these are vulnerable communities," said Synder, who was inspired to "help raise their voices."
Maria Cuomo Cole likened efforts to ensure books are age appropriate to "McCarthy-ism" and expressed concern that the desire to ensure content is age appropriate has "permeated so many other sectors of society with our museums and our our colleges and our universities and our mainstream entertainment."
Perhaps she's not familiar with the Motion Picture Association of America's rating system for movies?
State Librarian Deborah Schander was worried about the "significant rise in challenges" to inappropriate books in Connecticut, citing more than 100 challenges in a year.
She was grateful that Connecticut passed a bill this session to protect librarians from parents who do not want their children to access pornography or other inappropriate books in the library. "It requires libraries have policies to deal with these issues, but it also says things like they are protected from criminal and civil prosecution. It says that if you bring a challenge, you have to provide an explanation for why you are challenging that book," explained Schander.
Transgender author Oliver Radclyffe boasted about the "very bannable book" she wrote and is hoping that librarians just sort of slip it into their collections "where nobody's noticing it."
"I had no access to these books because they hadn't been written when I was a kid. I'm in my 50s now. And you know seeing that change over the last 10 years, seeing the volume of queer and trans books that are being published is incredibly exciting to me," explained Radclyffe who is "thinking about these kids who then don't have to go through these experiences that I went through."
"It's like a double whammy because not only do they not have access to these books, but they're also being given the message that what they are is somehow dirty or unclean or unacceptable or or pornographic," said Radclyffe. "I find that really heartbreaking."
Cuomo Cole said that librarians symbolize "integrity and courage" and added that young people are craving "role models of decency and people who have courage in this in this moment in history."
She also wants to the "freadom to read" movement to spread globally, kind of like Doctors Without Borders, and thinks the documentary "cuts across partisan lines."
Cuomo Cole suggested there was an element of "misogyny" to the whole "book ban issue" since librarians are predominately women. She added that "librarians of color" in particular "didn't necessarily have the luxury to come forward and didn't didn't feel as safe" speaking out for their documentary.
One audience member who asked for advice to combat "book banning" was told by Schander to "think about your own mental health, your own health, and what you are facing" and to recognize that "you are not alone in what is happening."
Forget about the stress, anxiety and concern experienced by parents who don't want their children consuming pornography in the library. Nope, the message is that librarians should focus on their own needs, which seem to include sexualizing children.
"As a government official, I can't say anything more about advocacy, but I would recommend that you speak with your professional associations about that," said Schander.
Cuomo Cole thinks the documentary should be used in conjunction with Board of Education elections so that community members get into the "spirit of fighting censorship" to help drive election turnout.
In general, the panelists seemed more concerned about whether librarians and educators in allegedly "anti-teacher states," like Florida and Texas, were getting support from the unions than they were about families who don't want their children introduced to queer ideology and pornography.
The Fall of Freedom is an "urgent call to the arts community to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation" because these folks believe that "democracy is under attack" and "dissent is being criminalized."
The "Fall of Freedom" website features the group's manifesto about alleged attacks by the Trump Administration, e.g., students kidnapped, citizenship stripped, genocide normalized, Nazis emboldened, etc.
"This is why we must resist" claims Fall of Freedom, which was launched in October 2025 to undertake "creative resistance" to the Trump Administration.
The website offers other resources, too, including an utterly ridiculous vocabulary list of more than 250 words and phrases they claim are "banned" under the Trump Administration, e.g., air pollution, autism, Black, climate, COVID-19, discrimination, equality, elderly, female, measles, minority, Native American, obesity, peanut allergies, pollution, racism, stereotype, women, and the list goes on and on.
Fall of Freedom further recommends specific actions for activists to take in libraries to further the progressive agenda, including hosting readings of "banned books" and holding drag queen story hours.
Of course, if books like The 1619 Project were actually banned, you wouldn't be able to buy them off Amazon, but that detail seems unimportant to these folks who are hell-bent on sexualizing minors in libraries.
It's unclear exactly who or how Fall of Freedom is funded.
However, PEN America, a left-wing nonprofit focused on its own conception of free speech and journalism, actively promotes the initiative and lists it on their site as a partner action.
PEN America is funded by a mix of individual donors, foundations (e.g., Open Society Foundations), membership dues, and event revenues—totaling around $20-25 million annually in recent years.
However, there is no explicit confirmation that PEN America provides direct financial backing to Fall of Freedom, though former PEN president Jennifer Egan has publicly endorsed the project, aligning it with PEN's mission.
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