Eagle Forum of Alabama has filed a federal lawsuit against the Tuscaloosa Public Library board, claiming the library blocked the group from holding two meetings there in August 2025.
According to the suit, the group held a meeting in the library’s rotary room in March 2025 and then tried to reserve the space for two more meeting in August, but were notified by a library staff member that the group could not use the room due to a policy prohibiting “meetings of religious or sectarian groups for the purpose of preaching or otherwise demonstrating the beliefs of their members.”
“The Tuscaloosa Public Library can’t close its meeting spaces to religious groups like Eagle Forum while swinging them wide open to every manner of secular organizations. Such religious discrimination blatantly violates the Constitution,” said ADF Senior Counsel Travis Barham. “We are urging the court to hold library staff accountable for this violation of Eagle Forum’s constitutionally protected freedoms and restore the Christian nonprofit’s right to access the public library like everyone else.”
The Tuscaloosa Public Library board could not be reached for comment before publication time.
This is not the first time Alabama libraries have faced legal challenges from right-wing groups asserting their right to meet at the library. In 2023, Moms for Liberty planned a story hour event featuring the actor Kirk Cameron at the Madison Public Library, only for the library to cancel the event days before. Eagle Forum also supported that event, and alongside Moms for Liberty claimed that the library discriminated against the group. Library officials said the event was canceled due to the estimated number of guests ballooning from 30 to 300.
After the groups pursued legal action, the library ultimately allowed the event to go on with extra attendees assigned to an overflow space.
The lawsuit is part of a greater tussle between these kinds of groups and public libraries in Alabama. Eagle Forum has been among the groups that has pressed for libraries in the state to move LGBTQ+ books and “sexually explicit” books to adult sections only, or remove them from libraries entirely.
