Library employees settle Internet porn suit.

New policies are on the books at a Minnesota library that was sued for job discrimination. The Minneapolis Public Library has settled a federal suit brought by 12 employees who claimed the library failed to protect them from patrons who were using its computers to view hard-core porn online. In addition to paying a monetary settlement, the library has agreed to make several policy changes. (Adamson v. Minneapolis Public Library, No. 03-CV-2521 (D. Minn. settled Aug. 7, 2003).)

The employees--11 women and a man--said the library created a hostile work environment when it failed to respond to their complaints that about 25 men spent hours at the library trolling pornographic Web sites, masturbating, stalking them, making catcalls and physical threats, luring children into viewing images of bestiality and child rape, and intentionally leaving printouts of pornographic images on tables around the building for librarians and patrons to see.

"The financial settlement in this case sends a strong message to libraries ... that they must take the concerns of their employees seriously," said the plaintiffs--six librarians, five aides, and a page--in a written statement.

The monetary component of the settlement will compensate the workers for three years of suffering and being chastised for complaining. Policy changes include maintaining a security force, toughening penalties for patrons who violate the library's Internet-use policy, and researching pornography-filtering technology.

In their statement, the plaintiffs said that after the library ins tailed computer terminals in 1997, its "anything goes" Internet policy "led directly to a deluge of pornography and pornographic users" at the library. The staff members requested that library administrators establish a "responsible" Internet-use policy, but it did not.

"Many of the problems at [the Minneapolis Public Library] were at their root a result of positions taken by the American Library Association," the statement said. "The American Library Association's concern has been entirely with the rights of the person viewing obscene images, to the exclusion of the rest of the public."

The settlement came just over a month after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in United States v. American Library Association, that the Children's Internet Protection Act--which required public libraries that receive federal funding to use Internet filters--does not violate the First Amendment. (123 S. Ct. 2297 (2003).)

"This settlement reflects a victory for common sense," said attorney Robert Halagan of Buffalo, Minnesota, who represented the plaintiffs. "It ensures that libraries across the country will recognize the need to take into account both their constitutional obligations under the First Amendment and their statutory obligations under Title VII when dealing with obscene and offensive materials. It gives staff and patrons of public libraries the ability to ensure that their libraries are not overwhelmed by this type of material."

The employees filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in May 2000. Soon after, library administrators took action: They moved computer terminals to a central location, began charging a small fee to patrons who wished to print documents, and posted a notice at each terminal, warning that displaying, printing, sending, and receiving obscene text and graphics violates Minnesota law. Patrons were also required to sign up to use a computer and to limit their use to no more than 30 minutes. Once these changes were in place, visits from the men who frequented porn Web sites tapered off.

In 2001, the EEOC agreed that the employees had been subjected to unlawful discrimination and forwarded the charges to the Department of Justice, which spent a year investigating the allegations but declined to file suit.

The plaintiffs sued in federal court in Minnesota in March 2003 and settled with the library five months later.

The Minneapolis Public Library, in a written statement, said, "The library acknowledges that it has a duty to protect its employees from unlawful sexual harassment.... [T]he library has been attempting to strike a balance between allowing the public access to lawful materials and protecting its employees and patrons from exposure to offensive materials. In retrospect, the library regrets that it did not respond sooner."