Shut up! : the bizarre war that one public library waged against the First Amendment

I do not read a lot of books anymore because I am busy. I read mostly online articles. Can't remember the last time I bought a book. The reason I bought Shut up! is because I live in Orland Park and I was curious to read the story about what had gone down at the library. This was a big fight in our area for a long time. I read a lot about it in the Prairie local paper. Its exciting that someone wrote a book about our village. I got really angry when I read in the paper about all the money that the library was wasting on food and parties for themselves. I also read that the library director hired her own son to work there and that she used tax money to buy herself things. This was all in the paper. I saw a few videos online that showed the board members at the library acting bad and shouting at people. I also saw online how this library had problems with sexual activity happening in there and they either would not or could not stop it. Its really embarrassing but because of this library our village is now a joke. People make fun of me when they hear I am from Orland because Orland is now known for being the place with the pornographic library where guys go to do sex during the day around kids. I have never been inside that library because I do not have kids and I can afford to buy my own books and movies. I know some people are poor though and need the library. But they do not have to go to the library for sex. Sex is something they should do at home and not at the library. This book is very long and at first I thought I was in school again. It is longer than any book I have even seen besides the encyclopedia. But I really enjoyed reading it. it took me two weeks to read because I would read it at home and on weekends. I work during the day. the book has a lot of funny parts but it also made me mad because there is proof in here that our whole village is corrupt. The mayor and police and everyone were in on it. They covered up the sex that was going on in the library like they wanted it to be happening. And Megan and Kevin were the people who figured out what was going on. Instead of anyone thanking them for doing that all they did was attack them. The police in Orland should all be fired. I am glad that Megan and Kevin sued them and won. I wish they had won more. The police belong behind bars for what they did to scare Megan and Kevin and make them be quiet.

I wanted to hate this book because someone in my family works in a library (but not Orland). I heard bits of this story secondhand over the years while it all happened. For a while it was all anyone talked about. You kind of took sides based on if you knew someone who worked in the Orland library and if you didn't. I didn't want to believe Orland would do the things that they got accused of doing. I don't know why any library would allow those things to be happening. I broke down and bought this book because I was curious and was surprised by how funny it is. It is not a political book like others on the shelves. To me it is more like a David Sedaris or Sarah Vowell kind of book where it is about political things but it is funny. There is a lot of documentation and evidence backing up the writers and showing that Orland did wrong like they said they did. I also like that there are videos that you can google and you can see where quotes come from and see a lot of the things that happened in meetings. That was pretty cool. I am glad I looked at the videos on youtube. I never a read a book that did that before where you could actually watch real footage like that. I was surprised how much I liked this book and I actually am going to give it to my family member to read because I think she needs to see the other side's take on what happened at Orland. 

The thesis of Megan Fox/Kevin Dujan's book is simple: the American Library Association lies to the public and tells librarians to cover up crimes that are committed in public libraries.

This is a serious accusation. And guess what? This book "Shut up! The Bizarre War that One Public Library Waged Against the First Amendment" has pages and pages of proof that this is exactly what is happening.

Fox/Dujan back up their claims with documents they obtained with FOIA requests to the Orland Park library in Orland Park, IL.In 2013, Fox/Dujan discovered by accident that the Orland Park library was allowing men to engage in sexual activity inside the library without police being called. Fox/Dujan then used FOIA to dig into how bad the situation really was. They report their findings in "Shut up!" and even reprint many of these reports. You will be horrified what you see. They busted library employees and representatives of the American Library Association covering up crimes, lying about sexual incidents that happened in Orland Park, and there are even videos that you can watch on Youtube that are transcribed in the book. Every allegation made by Fox/Dujan is supported by fact and primary sources.

Fox/Dujan have a writing style that is brash and may not be received well by everyone. This book alternates between perspectives, with Fox taking a chapter and then Dujan writing a chapter in a She Said/He Said kind of gimmick. I happened to enjoy this but my wife didn't like it when she was reading the book. Fox's writing is that of a mom and it is clear that she is a parenting columnist. Dujan throws a lot of pop culture references at the reader and engages in a lot of wordplay, puns, and insider jokes that it takes a lot of effort to understand. Surprisingly both of them talk about religion a lot, with Dujan actually coming across as the more religious of the two. That was a shocker because Dujan is openly gay and Fox bills herself as a Christian homeschooling mom. There are a lot of surprises in this book as the two authors relate a lot of personal stories.

Were all the personal stories necessary though? You will read about Dujan living in Iceland for a while and dating some guy there. You'll also hear about some other guy he dated who cheated on him and wrote a book that Dujan makes fun of. Fox goes on about previous jobs she's held and people she's worked with. Though the two of them do try to tie these personal stories back to topics they are discussing in the book, I feel that a better editor could have culled 200 pages off the length just by deleting these personal stories about the authors. There were times that I wanted to shout Get to the point! even if I later saw what they were doing and understood the build up.

I think the book needed something on the back explaining that Fox/Dujan did not intend this to be a typical nonfiction book. I would actually categorize it as creative nonfiction because Fox/Dujan both use narrative devices that are more at home in a mystery or thriller or even comedy genre than straight nonfiction. The book is classified here on Worldcat in First Amendment and censorship and political science but I think the writing defies easy classification. There is a lot of humor in here and most of it is really funny. It may even be funnier for people who are more hip to pop culture and get all the references.

I highly recommend Shut up! because Megan Fox and Kevin Dujan did something with this project that I think is pretty remarkable: they wrote an epic tale about uncovering crimes in a local public library. This is not a place I normally associate with criminal activity. The villains of this book are people that no one would normally view as villains: librarians, the local police chief, the local mayor, library board members. There is a line at the beginning of the book where Fox/Dujan talk about how this is like a book where soft puffy clouds or purring kittens are the villains so prepare for that surprise. It was funny and ended up being true.

The people running the Orland Park library should be ashamed of themselves if what Fox/Dujan have written here is true, which I do not doubt it is because of how exhaustively the book is linked to primary source documents. I notice that the book is not carried by the Orland Park library on its shelves but is available at other local libraries in the Chicago area. I can't help but think it is the height of irony and hypocrisy that the Orland library does not carry a book that was written about the Orland library. This is something glaring that should be addressed at the ALA's next Banned Books week. Isn't this censorship and book banning happening at the Orland Park library? Don't tell me the people of Orland Park are not curious about a book all about their library. Why is this book not on the shelves there?

Mrs. Fox and Mr. DuJan are both broad observers of life. As commentators on local government and the First Amendment, they are set apart by a writing style that weaves together funny anecdotes, personal biographies, historical events, and documented public occurrences into an engrossing metastory that serves as a commentary on our society as a whole in addition to being an account of what happened at the local public library that people need to know about. As a favorite professor of mine once said, they are afflicting the comfortable in the fine tradition of Benjamin Franklin and Oscar Wilde and Ida B. Wells. They ridicule the powerful brazenly and without fear of retribution. You need to understand how things work in Illinois for you to appreciate how profound this book is: writing this book could very well have signed Mrs. Fox and Mr. DuJan up for all sorts of harassment and retribution. This is how the Democratic machine works in a liberal state like ours. Mrs. Fox and Mr. DuJan stepped on powerful toes. They exposed crimes that a powerful man such as Timothy McCarthy wanted to stay hidden. They were targeted with a vicious lawsuit aimed at silencing them but they kept going even when they were threatened that if they kept writing they would be destroyed. Employees at the Orland Park Public library appear to have made death and rape threats against Mrs. Fox and there are videos of public officials harassing Mr. DuJan in public and calling him homophobic slurs that turned my stomach. All of this abuse was heaped on them because they discovered that Orland Park Public library employees were covering up crimes because they did not want people to know what was going on in there. I used to go to that library all the time as a kid and when I was in high school. I have friends with small brothers and sisters or nieces/nephews. After reading everything that went on in that place I have told everyone I know not to trust leaving children alone in that building. Part of me understands why the library employees did what they did because it is human nature to want to cover up something bad that happened. Perhaps they thought that it was anomalous and that it would not happen again. But when it kept happening, at some point wiser hands should have intervened and brought in the authorities. It feels like by then it was too late and too much had happened and been covered up. Mrs. Fox and Mr. DuJan uncovered every crime committed in there that was documented for the last 10 years that reporters never bothered to report on. We have no way of knowing how many other things happened that were never reported on or documented because staff chose not to write any of it down. In my personal opinion, I wish that library employees had been put under oath and made to give depositions about everything else that may have happened in there that was never reported. I also would have liked to have seen library management and trustees put under oath for depositions and see them have to answer for the things they did to Mrs. Fox and Mr. DuJan in their attempts to scare away these authors. After  you read this book, you will most surely question what all the comfortable, powerful people are doing in your locality as well. Cover-ups appear to be endemic and epidemic in liberal blue states like ours.

I am a researcher working on briefs in support of the SPEAK FREE Act being debated by Congress currently (August 2016). There are very few books written about SLAPPs, Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation. I read the George Pring/Penelope Canan book from the 1990s and also the Michelangelo Delfino book from the mid-2000s. Surprisingly there are not a lot of books about SLAPP lawsuits from start to finish. 

SHUT UP by Megan Fox and Kevin DuJan contains within it a detailed examination of a SLAPP lawsuit filed against them by Bridget Bittman, a (now) former employee of the Orland Park Public Library. The book tells many stories, but the one I was most interested in was reading about how Bittman served them with the SLAPP (she had the lawsuit served on them during a public board meeting), what the SLAPP entailed, who represented Bittman in her SLAPP, how Fox and DuJan defended themselves during the SLAPP, and what happened with the litigation. 

If you are studying SLAPPs, this book is a good reference because it is a detailed primary source account of what it is like to be hit with a SLAPP. The chapters that I found most useful regarding SLAPPS were: 

(a.) Ch-18, The Bittman Records

(b.) CH-23, The Hatefest

(c.) CH-36 Hot Cops!

(d.) CH-37, Fruit!

(e.) CH-40, Dangling Pianos

(f.) CH-41, SLAPP!

(g.) CH-42, Abandon All Hope

(h.) CH-43, Sassy Plants

(i.) CH-44, Ravenclaw Tower

(j.) CH-50, The Catoosa Blue Whale

(k.) CH-57, Bridget Bittman's Terrible, Horrible, No Good Bad Day

The rest of the book has a lot of information about the Freedom of Information Act, Illinois Library Law, and the First Amendment that is all valuable. My research focuses strictly on SLAPP, so I found the other information interesting but not vital for my purposes. The above mentioned chapters, however, provided invaluable insight into SLAPPs as a primary source firsthand account by Fox and DuJan, who prevailed in the SLAPP that Bittman filed against them. 

The writing is conversational and humorous. The authors seemed to have spent time thinking about how to distill the information in a way that a layman can appreciate. Nothing is left unexplained in terms of terminology or the various aspects of SLAPPs. The Pring/Canan book is referenced here as well. I checked the facts cited in the book with available sources on Google and most of the court documents were available from PACER as well. The authors' accounts check out and are accurate as far as I can see.