Last night, Carla D. Hayden, the librarian of Congress, found out she had been fired from her long-term position in a two sentence email. “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately,” it read, per The New York Times. “Thank you for your service.”
Hayden was appointed as the 14th librarian of Congress by Barack Obama in 2016 and oversaw the precious collection through both Trump’s first administration and Biden’s term. She was both the first woman and first African American person to ever hold the position. She also lauded the library as “inclusive” and “a part of everyone’s story” in a video posted by the Obama administration upon her nomination, an attitude which of course made her too “woke” for conservative critics like the American Accountability Foundation, which posted on X calling for her removal mere hours before the news broke. “The current #LibrarianOfCongress Carla Hayden is woke, anti-Trump, and promotes trans-ing kids. It’s time to get her OUT and hire a new guy for the job!” the group wrote, thanking Trump for his action a few hours later.
Democrats have condemned the decision. “Enough is enough,” said Chuck Schumer, per The Hollywood Reporter. He also called Hayden a “trailblazer, a scholar, and a public servant of the highest order.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries added that “Donald Trump’s unjust decision to fire Dr. Hayden in an email sent by a random political hack is a disgrace and the latest in his ongoing effort to ban books, whitewash American history and turn back the clock.” He also lauded Hayden as “an accomplished, principled and distinguished librarian of Congress.”
Just this month, Trump also moved to gut the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and defund both NPR and PBS. It’s bleak out there, but at least the library itself still stands. “Libraries are the great equalizer,” Hayden said in a video posted on X last month. “And when you have a free public library in particular… [it’s an] opportunity center for people of all walks of life, and you are giving them the opportunity to make choices on which information, entertainment and inspiration means the most to them.”
