The Kansas City Public Library and a librarian who was arrested last year during a public event are receiving two national awards for defense of free speech....
Kansas City Library wins the Paul Howard Award for Courage, given biannually for “unusual courage for the benefit of library programs or services.”
Steve Woolfolk, the library’s director of public programming, will receive the Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity, named for the pen name of Daniel Handler, author of the “A Series of Unfortunate Events” books.
But the same week the awards were announced, city prosecutors filed two new charges against the librarian.
The awards and the charges stem from a May 9 incident in which the librarian, Steve Woolfolk, intervened to try to stop the arrest of library patron Jeremy Rothe-Kushel during the question-and-answer part of a talk by Middle East expert and diplomat Dennis Ross at the Plaza library.
