The White House is defending President Donald Trump’s decision to sack the first woman and first non-white person to serve as Librarian of Congress by stating that ousted librarian Carla Hayden “did not fit the needs of the American people.”
Hayden, who was confirmed to serve a 10-year term in 2016 and had one year left in the job, was also the first professional librarian to lead the library since the 1970s.
She was informed of her termination by way of an email from the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, the little-known arm of the White House that has been carrying out a purge of federal officials who served under or were appointed by Trump’s predecessor, former president Joe Biden.
The email said her service was “terminated effective immediately.”
Hayden had been the subject of criticism from a group called the American Accountability Foundation that has targeted civil servants and other government officials who they have deemed “woke” or insufficiently loyal to Trump’s agenda. The group accused her of being “anti-Trump” and of having promoted “trans-ing kids” in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, just before she was terminated from her position.
Asked why Trump had moved to fire Hayden, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the her continued service “did not fit the needs of the American people” and accused her of having done “quite concerning things … in the pursuit of [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion],” as well as having put “inappropriate books for children” in the library, which receives copies of every book that is copyrighted in the United States each year.
“We don’t believe that she was serving the interests of the American taxpayer well, so she has been removed from her position, and the President is well within his rights to do that,” Leavitt said.
Democrats in Congress have condemned Trump’s decision as part of an assault on free expression.
Rosa DeLauro, the Connecticut congresswoman who serves as the top Democrat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement that Hayden had been “loved” and “respected” by members of both parties.
“A ‘fighter of freedom’ and a guardian of our nation’s truth and intellectual legacy, Dr. Hayden was just abruptly and callously fired by President Trump. “Dr. Hayden’s tenure has been marked by a steadfast commitment to accessibility, modernization, and the democratization of knowledge. Her dismissal is not just an affront to her historic service but a direct attack on the independence of one of our most revered institutions,” she said.
Representative Joe Morelle of New York, the ranking member of the House Administration Committee, called Hayden “an American hero” and said in a statement that he would introduce legislation to “guarantee that the Librarian of Congress is appointed by Congress” going forward.
He also called Trump’s move “ignorant” and warned that it would “impact America’s libraries, our copyrighted economic interests, and service to the American people.”
Another New Yorker, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, called her firing “a disgrace” and “the latest in his ongoing effort to ban books, whitewash American history and turn back the clock.”
