The White House said President Donald Trump fired the first Black woman to run the Library of Congress over his concerns about her focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.
Trump had longtime Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden dismissed via email late on May 8, drawing broad condemnation from her supporters in Congress. Hayden holds a PhD in library sciences and was nominated to the post in 2016 by then-President Barack Obama.
Speaking to reporters on May 9, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Trump felt taxpayers would be better served without her.
Hayden was both the first Black American and the first woman to head the library, which is the world’s largest. Trump has repeatedly targeted programs and people who he considers improperly advancing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Many conservatives over the past several years have also fought with librarians nationally over the availability of books deemed too sexually explicit for young people.
“We felt she did not fit the needs of the American people. There were quite concerning things that she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI and putting inappropriate books in the library for children,” Leavitt said.
Hayden appeared before a Congressional committee earlier in the week, facing questions from a library modernization project whose cost has ballooned while completion deadlines have been repeatedly delayed. The library preserves millions of books, films, photos and manuscripts. It’s also home to the U.S. Copyright Office.
Hayden had also been leading the “Of the People” initiative to bring more works from Black, indigenous, Hispanic or Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander and other communities of color into the library’s collections. She had often spoken about the awe-inspiring job she had to help preserve and protect American history.
The nonprofit American Accountability Foundation, a conservative group dedicated to protecting Trump’s “America First” initiatives, had been pushing for Hayden’s firing, and celebrated her departure as a defeat for the “woke, anti-Trump” bureaucracy.
Hayden was serving a 10-year term as the Librarian of Congress, and would have been up for reappointment next year.
Several Democratic members of Congress criticized her firing.
“While President Trump wants to ban books and tell Americans what to read – or not to read at all, Dr. Hayden has devoted her career to making reading and the pursuit of knowledge available to everyone,” New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich said in a statement.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump fires long-term Librarian of Congress over DEI concerns
