Drag Queen Story Hour cost SC librarian his job, he says. Now county library will pay

The manager of a library in South Carolina said he was pushed out after he became “inappropriately involved” in assisting organizers with a Drag Queen Story Hour in early 2019, according to court filings.

Now the county is settling with him for $30,000.

Jonathan Newton headed up the Five Forks branch of the Greenville County Library System in Simpsonville until he was reportedly forced to resign in March 2019 — three weeks after the Drag Queen Story Hour event, according to a lawsuit filed April 6 in state court against the county library system and its executive director.

Attorneys for the library and the executive director did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News. But a stipulation of dismissal filed in state court June 3 shows the parties reached a settlement agreement.

Jay Anthony, Newton’s attorney, declined to comment on the settlement, citing a confidentiality clause.

Newton received $30,000 plus an additional $7,635 in expenses under the terms of the agreement, according to financial records published by the S.C. Comptroller General.

The settlement was paid by the S.C. Insurance Reserve Fund, which provides liability coverage to state and local governments in South Carolina, according to its website. The fund’s most recent quarterly report lists the payments as part of an “employee dispute” brought by Newton against the Greenville County Library.

Newton had filed suit for alleged violations of his civil rights, wrongful discharge and defamation earlier this year, court filings show. The events surrounding Drag Queen Story Hour were at the crux of his complaint.

The story hour was sponsored by the group Mom’s Liberal Happy Hour SC and went off as planned on Feb. 17, 2019, McClatchy News reported. But it was marred by controversy from the onset, prompting calls for its cancellation, threats to defund the library, a protest and heavy police presence.

“During the time leading up to the event, the Five Forks staff members were harassed, and even received death threats,” Newton’s attorneys said in the complaint.

Drag Queen Story Hour was briefly called off when officials realized the event had violated library system policy by inviting guests to register online — but the library ultimately approved a new event application and reinstated it, according to McClatchy News.

That was due in part to Newton informing the group about the issue with online ticket sales and subsequently delivering the new event application to the library system’s director, according to court filings.

Shortly thereafter, Newton posted on Facebook he was leaving his job at the library but wouldn’t say whether he had been fired or voluntarily left, McClatchy News reported.

The circumstances of his departure didn’t come to light until he filed suit more than a year later.

According to the lawsuit, Newton was called into a meeting on March 19, 2019 with the library’s executive director and a representative from Human Resources, where he was reportedly told he had become “inappropriately involved with a non-library program and lost perspective on (his) responsibilities.”

Newton was given the option of being fired and losing more than $5,000 in benefits he accumulated over his 17-year career or voluntarily resigning, the lawsuit states.

He chose to resign.

Newton’s lawsuit accused the executive director and the library board of acting “purposefully to deny constitutional rights to American citizens, and to prevent an event from going forward based on nothing more than the identity of the participants and their views.”

The parties settled within two months of the complaint being filed.