WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge agreed Thursday to temporarily block the Trump administration from taking any more steps to dismantle an agency that funds and promotes libraries across the U.S.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled that plaintiffs who sued to preserve the Institute of Museum and Library Services are likely to show that the administration doesn’t have the legal authority to unilaterally shutter the agency, which Congress created.
The American Library Association and a labor union for federal employees filed a lawsuit last month to stop the administration from gutting the institute after President Donald Trump signed a March 14 executive order that refers to it and several other federal agencies as “unnecessary.”
Keith Sonderling, the agency’s newly appointed acting director, subsequently placed many agency staff members on administrative leave, sent termination notices to most of them, began canceling grants and contracts and fired all members of the National Museum and Library Services Board.
“These harms are neither speculative nor remediable,” Leon wrote.
The judge said he was issuing a “narrow” temporary restraining order that preserves the status quo at the agency without granting all of the relief that plaintiffs’ attorneys were seeking. It bars the administration from taking any more steps to dissolve the agency or its operations, fire any staffers or cancel contracts while the lawsuit is pending.
The institute has roughly 75 employees and issued more than $266 million in grants last year.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys warn that closing the agency will force libraries to end grant-funded programs, cut staff and possibly even close.
“And even if Defendants possessed constitutional or statutory authority to eviscerate IMLS, they have provided no reasoned explanation for doing so, ignored strong reliance interests, and failed to consider more reasonable alternatives,” they wrote.
Government lawyers said Trump’s executive order requires the institute to reduce its work to only that which is required by statute. They also argued that the district court doesn’t have jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ claims.
“Plaintiffs’ requested injunctive relief would effectively disable several federal agencies, as well as the President himself, from implementing the President’s priorities consistent with their legal authorities,” they wrote.
Cindy Hohl, president of the American Library Association, said the cut in funding is already impacting libraries across the country, including in rural areas where libraries are setting up their summer reading programs.
“Many libraries that already have contracts with performers and educators, they’re having to find other ways to be able to pay for their assistance with programs,” she said. Hohl added that the grants are a minute percentage of the overall federal budget but provide sizable funding for some facilities that will have to close.
