A middle school teacher whose classroom was searched by police in Great Barrington for a copy of “Gender Queer: A Memoir” is suing town officials for violating her civil rights.
In a 33-page federal lawsuit filed Tuesday, Arantzazu Zuzene Galdos-Shapiro said the police search, which drew national media coverage, began after a “homophobic bigot” custodian said the book was obscene and falsely alleged that a student had been seen sitting on her lap.
The lawsuit alleged that school administrators and police officials sent an officer to the W.E.B. Dubois Middle School on Dec. 8 without determining whether the employee’s account was reliable.
Once there, police Officer Joseph O’Brien activated his body-worn camera and questioned Galdos-Shapiro and the school’s principal, Miles Wheat, telling them he was investigating an anonymous report of obscene material being provided to children, according to the lawsuit and a copy of O’Brien’s report to Chief Paul E. Storti that was included in court papers.
The book has sparked controversy. In 2022, it topped the American Library Association’s list of most “challenged” books for a second straight year. In December, police said an illustration in the book “depicted animated characters performing sexual acts on each other.”
The lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Springfield, named O’Brien, Storti, Berkshire Hills Regional School District Superintendent Peter Dillon, and the town of Great Barrington as defendants. According to his email, Dillon is recovering from surgery and could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Storti and O’Brien also could not be reached for comment.
The police investigation became public after Dillon emailed parents about it and police issued a press release.
“The unwarranted criminal investigation and interrogation that they inflicted on Ms. Galdós-Shapiro and the resulting aftermath, including Defendants’ decision to publish the baseless, false, and defamatory allegations against Ms. Galdós-Shapiro, including the allegation that she was, essentially, a pedophile, left her devastated and profoundly shaken, ill, distressed, and fearful, her reputation publicly destroyed,” the lawsuit stated.
The man who triggered the investigation was Adam Yorke, a former night custodian, who spoke with police two days after he filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, claiming he was being punished by supervisors because he was white, according to the report.
Yorke went to the police station and spoke with O’Brien at 1:23 p.m. in the lobby and left around 1:38 p.m., according to the independent report. O’Brien, Storti, and Dillon had a series of telephone conversations, with the allegation that a student was allowed to sit on Galdos-Shapiro’s lap ranking as Dillon’s top concern, the report stated.
O’Brien arrived at the school at 2:39 p.m. Dillon was never told the accuser’s name, the report stated.
According to the investigation, Yorke had been suspended for talking about pedophilia with staff, berating a Spanish language teacher about the cleanliness of her classroom, and arguing that guns should be allowed in school to end gun violence.
Yorke is not a defendant in the lawsuit.
Galdos-Shapiro, who is described in the lawsuit as “queer and a Mexican-American teacher,” has worked for the school district since 2018. She was the adviser to the school’s chapter of the Gender & Sexuality Alliance and kept a separate library with books on the issue that could be provided to students with permission, according to the lawsuit.
“Gender Queer” is not part of the school district’s curriculum, according to the lawsuit.
The teacher alleges that because of the defendants’ “unlawful actions,” she has been threatened and suffered serious and substantial harm which caused her to take a leave from her teaching responsibilities out of fear, according to a press release accompanying the lawsuit.
In the lawsuit, Galdos-Shapiro alleged that police should have shared Yorke’s identity with school officials and should have investigated his reliability before considering questioning the teacher.
Most importantly, police should have conducted a simple search on Google about the book, the lawsuit alleged.
“That search would have provided them with immediate proof of the literary and artistic content and value of the book, as well as the many [school] districts that had already assessed the book and decided not to ban it,” the lawsuit stated. “That search would have destroyed any notion that the book was ‘obscene’ or that the teacher housing it in her classroom was criminally disseminating ‘obscene material’ to minors.”
After an outcry over the investigation, Storti apologized to “anyone who was negatively affected by our involvement” at the school. Dillon also issued a public apology for how the matter was handled. Governor Maura Healey issued a statement saying that “book banning has no place in Massachusetts.”
John R. Ellement can be reached at john.ellement@globe.com. Follow him @JREbosglobe.