Amanda Jones is due back in court on Monday in an effort to persuade a state district court judge to reconsider a curious ruling in September in Jones’s defamation lawsuit against two men she says defamed her on social media in the widening controversy over the content of school library books.
Jones is the school librarian for Live Oak Middle School in Livingston Parish and has been under relentless attack on Facebook by Livingston Parish resident Ryan Thames, with encouragement from St. Martinville resident Michael Lunsford and his self-appointed decency monitoring organization Citizens for a New Louisiana.
In September, 22nd JDC Judge Erika Sledge, with a courtroom full of Thames and Lunsford supporters ruled that Jones is a public figure under the US Supreme Court’s landmark Sullivan v. New York Times decision and THREW OUT Jones’s lawsuit against the two despite Thames’s having labeled Jones a pedophile on social media.
First of all, labeling Jones a public figure under the 1964 UNANIMOUS DECISION is quite a reach since its definition seemed to limit “public figures” to elected officials and figures of authority, not civil servants. Perhaps Judge Sledge felt the presence of the Thames-Lunsford supporters, who packed the courtroom, and, as an elected official, ruled on the basis of what she perceived as the desires of her political base instead of the rule of law.
Nevertheless, Jones was granted a rehearing of her case Monday in the Livingston Parish Courthouse. The case is scheduled for 1 p.m.
Even if Jones did fall within the legal definition of public figure, Sullivan v. New York Times said that if someone labeling charges against a public figure knew the allegation to be false and still uttered or wrote it with malice and forethought, then that person could be found guilty of defamation.
It would certainly seem that Thames had no basis, factual or otherwise, to call Jones a pedophile.
Lunsford said his efforts to remove/relocate objectionable books is not a censorship move but one of plain decency. But that would not explain why efforts are underway to ban books about Black Lives Matter, civil rights, women’s suffrage, and the US Civil War. And that movement certainly would not justify labeling one as a pedophile on social media.
NBC News has observed the trend toward library censorship and back in August, did a national FEATURE STORY on the travails of Jones and the threats to First Amendment freedoms.
On Thursday, The New York Times posted a 37-minute interview of Jones. You may read the transcript of that interview below:
Louisiana Voice 
I skirted many of these child sex abuse rabbit holes during my global research over the last five years. There is a huge global push to sexualize the world’s children. Well, not in China or Russia because they don’t allow it.
I shouldn’t have had to skirt these rabbit holes because my research is in green and guns, not the sexual grooming of school children. However, many of the world’s elites, in addition to being pedophiles themselves, are implementing their King/Surf program that requires destroying the family unit. I am guessing that’s where the 13 principles of BLM come in. The Elites don’t really believe in their own programs you know, and why their kids continued schooling during the Rona.
I didn’t dig into our local situation, I just remember thinking “It’s reached here” when I saw the Drag Queen Story Hour in our Lafayette Library. I knew the CRT was everywhere but I was unsure of the sexual grooming since I don’t have children in school, so I attended an anti-CRT meeting in Baton Rouge last year. I asked one question to the room of parents: “Are they sexualizing the children here in GovEd yet?” To which the room answered “Yes!”
I remember one of the first items I came across in UN News five years ago, was a Chinese youth group teaching American youth. Globalism (King/Surf program) can’t happen with an armed society, an energy independent society and…
Control the Children, Control the World.
Lady, your tin foil hat just slid down over your eyes. Did you ever watch Flip Wilson as Geraldine? Or Klinger on M*A*S*H? or Tony Curtis in ‘Some Like it Hot’? Or Mrs. Doubtfire? So you attended an ‘anti-CRT meeting’? Does that mean you are opposed to students learning critical thinking processes?
One thing I’ve learned is those who profess to be the most ‘religious’ have read only a tiny fraction of the Bible – parts that support their beliefs.
Tell you what, Reat Genesis 29, especially verses 21-28. Or Genesis 19: 30-36. Or Genesis 38: 15-18. Or Genesis 38: 8-9. Or Solomon 1:13; 4:5; 4:16; 5:4 and 8:10. Or Genesis 6:4.
Go ahead, I dare you.
And those don’t even include the mass murder of women and babies, rape, pillaging, and torture – all in the name of religion.
And while you’re at it, check out some of the laws given Moses in Leviticus, Numers and Deuteronomy.
Then we can talk about grooming children.
Roger Baines…thank you!
This story reminds me of a matter I am dealing with myself and my fear is irreparable harm.
https://www.soundoffla.com/broussard-takes-mob-boss-girouard-dubroc-to-court-asserting-defamation-and-tells-the-court-that-attorney-eric-haiks-sanctions-considerations-should-not-even-remotely-be-dignified-are/
The only thing I know about QAnon is what I read in the news so I wonder is “Cindy Hayes” a bunch of QAnon gobbledygook or is that her own personal lunacy?
Agree with Mr. Baines. thanks and Keep Learning/Keep loving and go Top Gun ( I know Luke lost but He played fair) ron thompson