A Kansas City judge dismissed charges against a librarian 16 months after he was arrested during a talk by former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross. A security guard hired for the occasion used force to remove patron who asked Ross about U.S. support for Israeli “state-sponsored terrorism.” In defense of the patron’s free speech rights, Steve Woolfolk attempted to intervene and was arrested. (KCUR, September 9, 2017, by Laura Ziegler)
The American Library Association gave the library a courage award, and Woolford received the Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced With Adversity. (The Topeka Capital-Journal, September 9, 2017, by the Associated Press)
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