About 50 speakers lined up for a contentious clash on Tuesday in what has been two-year-long battle over banning books at the North Hunterdon-Voorhees Regional High School library.

The controversy before the school board meeting — rescheduled to accommodate the large crowd — was over embattled school librarian, Martha Hickson, and her refusal to pull illustrated sex-ed books like “Let’s Talk About It” off her library’s shelves.

“This is a far cry away from the days of showing reproductive parts in health class and discussing abstinence,” said Lee Mack, a resident from Lebanon. “Now we have librarians with hardcore agendas.”

Responded another parent, Amy Barrett: “‘Let’s Talk About It’ is sex education for teenagers, not pornography. And I’m going to add here, I was also sexually abused as an adolescent, and knowing about my body and about consent would have been really helpful at the time.”

Hickson attended the meeting but didn’t speak to the board. But her supporters criticized the board for failing to defend her against online harassment, including Facebook attacks allegedly posted by the husband of board member Cynthia Reyes.

Clinton resident Maureen McSweeney said, “It is shameful — I repeat, shameful — that a teacher or a librarian can be harassed or threatened for doing their job.”

Librarians from several different organizations also spoke up for Hickson. “A spouse of one of your sitting board members is harassing your employee on social media… And so far we have not heard about any actions being taken against the harassers,” said Ewa Dziedzic-Elliott, past president of the New Jersey Association of School Librarians.

Board president Glen Farbanish opened the meeting by stating support for free speech and said the board would refer any threats to police. “The board is fully committed to supporting our staff in the proper performance of their educational duties,” said Farbanish. “Let me be very clear. We do not and will not condone any use of violent or threatening language directed against our staff or anyone else.”

Hickson said she welcomed the speakers’ support and wanted to hear it from the board: “I do not feel protected by my school district.”

“I would like them to emphatically state that this harassment, this bullying is unacceptable,” she said. “I would like them to firmly state that I am doing my job and doing so with excellence.”

The board pointed out that no formal challenge had been filed for any particular book, but public debate raged anyway. Speakers on both sides of the issue vowed to hold board members accountable by recall vote, if necessary. And both sides marshaled outside organizations to bolster their arguments.

Steve Beatty, vice president of the New Jersey Education Association, the statewide teachers union, said, “The odds are too great, as we heard from some of these speakers, that would see us return to a dark time, when students had to closet themselves, didn’t see themselves in the books and the literature.”

Dan Kleinman, executive director of the Texas-based World Library Association, countered: “They’re not asking to remove all books about gayness or anything like that. Just a few of them that are clearly educationally unsuitable or pervasively vulgar.”

The board took no vote on the issue.