Craig: Thank you for informing those of us who weren't familiar with her about Carla Hayden and her service to the US. Because right-wing authoritarians are working quickly to undermine and damage epistemic institutions, we need to document every step of their process.
Yes. agreed. This is no longer a case of "bothsidesism" and "whataboutism", in seeing how some perpetually point to the sins of the woke Left and progressive authoritarianism--a problem, we know, from studies of LWA (Left Wing Authoritarianism). The greater challenge of the current time is preserving institutions from the backlash and vast overreach of RWA (Rightwing Authoritarianism). In this case, it's the drive for creating an alternative reality through our epistemic institutions--our universities, our major libraries, our educational system as a whole, and erasing the more complex parts of our history that don't comport with the "approved" views of Trump 2.0 and MAGA world. The impetus here may be as much about destruction and nihilism as anything else, but always with the gloss of the "approved" beliefs covering all, with the doctrinal purity--the very horse-shoe/mirroring move that some conservatives and rightwing populists have accused the woke Left of for years.
Thanks for sharing this article--yes, the Jussim / Maranto article gives a very balanced perspective and what might work to transcend the mutual recriminations, censorship, and harassment along ideological lines in higher ed. At least it's hopeful and encouraging. But it really is about norms and culture , and no blunderbuss about enforcing "viewpoint diversity" and *balancing* liberal/progressive and conservative/rightwing perspectives is likely to work. At the moment, many institutions are under assault in one way or another. Jussim and Maranto are right in pointing out that universities need to undertake internal reforms. HxA is obviously about reforming higher ed institutions, not undermining them or making them conform to a particular political agenda. The great hazard at the current moment, in my view, is the toll taken on institutions--on faculty in particular--by the blowback from Trump 2.0 that's vastly overreaching, causing confusion, uncertainty, and even further demoralization, after a fraught decade of excesses from woke/progressive authoritarians.
I must admit, it's the first time of a few decades of writing in the field of librarianship and English that I've ever been accused of writing. anything remotely like a "hysterical and delusional" ALA press release. Guess I've discovered a new genre by accident! I'll have to get better at it.
There's nothing special about ALA press releases, they're pretty much clickbait. The reason for the comparison is that usually the ALA is writing about something more or less connected to libraries. I look for more substance on HitS, that's all.
Wow, mulhern, that got nasty very quickly: hysterical, delusional, clickbait. I'm not a librarian, but I guess I expected better from people who represent the values and principles of librarianship. I disagree with your take, as much as there is of it. What I don't understand is why you chose to respond to a serious argument in this way.
Hiya. I apologized to Craig Gibson right upfront, that's the "I'm afraid" and also pulled my punches, that's the "almost". But I feel it's necessary to tell the truth as I see it. The "clickbait" described ALA press releases since Craig Gibson seemed to not understand my point at first. I can do no more in the way of restraint. Why do you think I represent the values and principles of "librarianship"? I represent the values and principles of me.
"Intelligent discussions of what is appropriate within “DEI” are now totally missing in the actions of the administration, because “DEI” is weaponized as a bludgeon to punish those who have questions about the worldview the administration wants to impose within leading universities and cultural institutions. Hence the drive for “epistemic secession” to establish the alternative reality—and sanitized history-- that the administration favors."
This is exactly what happened when DEI entered via the left. It may indeed be a tit for tat backlash or epistemic cold war. Trump is correct that libraries and other epistemic institutions have been ideologically captured. Isn't this just more changing of the guard as we've seen with all other appointed positions within government?
Ideally, llibraries would have maintained neutrality and be above the fray. But that has not been the case. So, Trump has identified libraries as a front in epistemic battles and acts accordingly. Go ahead and bemoan the epistemic culture war, but don't pretend this is worse or new from what we've just lived through.
Some of the comments here, and in the ALP listserv discussion earlier today, remind me much of conservative writer Douglas Murray's recent analogy: a flare goes up, and it shows exactly where everyone stands. The reactions to the Hayden and Perlmutter dismissals are pretty revealing.
My view--Trump is acting out of revenge and his own dominance displays on multiple fronts. He has the crude sense about what "ideological capture" means, not even at the level discussed here. He wants very much another kind of "ideological capture", per Chris Rufo, the form of "patriotic education" that masquerades as restoring the *real history* of the country. Trump doesn't know basic facts about American history, our system of government, and it shows constantly. So if you want to claim that Trump has any intention 'restoring a balance,' I disagree. He isn't knowledgeable enough personally to know what that would look like. But he will definitely rely on surrogates, and Rufo and others like Rufo are happy to oblige.
Yes, I can say the situation is worse, or certainly trending worse. It's very clear to me that organizations like FIRE and HxA--which are determinedly nonpartisan--are sounding the warnings about many of Trump's actions, against international students, against media organizations, against pollsters that Trump doesn't like. HxA President John Tomasi has been quite eloquent in appealing to the Trump administration about areas of common interest, to foster open inquiry and viewpoint diversity. If you think that Trump is interested in either of those aspirations, I will disagree. Greg Lukianoff, a champion of free speech and First Amendment, has grown very concerned about some of Trump's order and actions, particularly against 501c3 organizations--like FIRE itself! In an case, both FIRE and HxA's statements and warnings are more numerous and qualitatively different from any issued in the "before times."
FIRE did issue warnings against the Biden administration in the social media censorship case, but of course, the Supreme Court (mostly conservatives, as you know), did not rule in favor of one group that brought a suit about being censored on Facebook--because the
Court found that the plaintiffs did not have standing.
As for your other comment that Trump is "straightforward" or "honest" in any way, I will say yes, he's straightforward in that he regards some fellow Americans as not as political opponents, but as enemies. The blathering about "far Left Marxists" as applying to all liberals, progressives, centrists, or anyone he doesn't like, is a regular feature of his rhetoric. Any suggestion that he's actually acting in good faith on much of anything, I
find laughable.
It looks to me like libraries (well, the Library of Congress for sure) are caught in the crossfire of the culture wars that never go away. I will not likely be persuaded that Trump wants much more than another lap in his revenge tour in the recent firings at LoC--or the military service academy collection mandates.
I have written more than once on this substack about the censoriousness and the excesses of the woke left, in higher ed, in publishing, and in libraries. I understand much of what you're saying here. But if you want to make the claim that there's some kind of equivalence between "before" and "now" (especially with Trump 2.0), I will respectfully disagree, while acknowledging there's a greater need for our fractured conversations to
improve, with better listening and mutual willingness to understand the difficulties this country--and others--have experienced in the past several decades. That requires some perspective that can't come only from the heat of the current moment.
It sounds like you think that the progressive ideology that Trump is battling owns the epistemic high ground or the "truth." The progressives, in fact, have been literally re-writing history and scientific facts, which I can see evidenced in the children's book collection at my local public library.
Saying that Trump and his administration are acting from a place of only petty revenge and ignorance is probably underestimating the strategic epistemic struggle we're witnessing.
Firing a political appointee like Hayden is fair play. The disciplinary oustings for ideological differences condoned under Biden of rank and file employees for refusing vax mandates, or not being in line with race and gender groupthink, strike me as far more reprehensible and authoritarian.
Ousting pregnant women from their employment because they were unwilling to administer a dodgy pharmaceutical to their developing foetus is my highwater mark for authoritarianism so far.
What really bugs me about this is that there's no indication that Trump is ousting the Librarian of Congress in violation of the law. It's a position by presidential appointment. Trump is being very clear about the epistemic battle.
Under the previous admin, there were many people within libraries and academia who were disciplined or lost jobs for ideological reasons, but it was couched as being done in the name of public health, ie covid safety or racism. There was a very real purge of the "non compliant" that occurred. The dishonesty, gaslighting, and unethical behavior that occurred then was far worse than the straightforward approach that Trump is taking. So I don't think the firing of Hayden is a clarity moment telling us that Trump is worse than the far left progressive authoritarianism we experienced during covid.
I don't recall ever reading anything that made me skeptical of Hayden so I'm glad she got to finish most of her term. I see that there was chatter that she was "anti-Trump;" if true her dismissal probably is typical changing of the guard.
It is unsettling if the administration doesn't understand or appreciate the role of the Library of Congress as a vast research repository, and I think the firing of Perlmutter and any potential connection to her paper on A.I. and Fair Use Guidelines merits further exploration.
I do share your frustration that the censorship industrial complex that developed under the last administration hasn't merited the same level of concern.
Also, it has been difficult to tell what exactly has been going on with DOGE since mainstream media accounts are superficial at best, ideologically slanted at worst. I feel like Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying do a pretty good job here of parsing some of the layoffs/ grant cuts in the science world, starting at the one hour seventeen mark. It takes a lot of time and research to reach any kind of informed conclusions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0lmfyjQx8k
My response to the essay, more or less paragraph by paragraph:
1. Everything that is actually happening seems to rather chaotic right now. So I'm not sure what it is that is being clarified.
2. Nah. He fired her "because". Apparently he's within his right to do it. He's moving fast and wants to appoint someone different, that's all.
3. I wrestled with this paragraph for a while and then just gave up trying to comment on it.
4. This paragraph would be a great one if she was formally retiring instead of being fired. That is, it lacks substance, but would fit in well at a retirement ceremony.
5. Same as (4).
6. I think "diverse leadership" is a phrase that contains a category mistake. I like the phrase "tribal epistemology", don't understand how you think it connects to the rest of what you're saying and wonder why the authors of the article are so one sided about the evidence for it existing and among what groups.
7. Cheap shot at the White House Press Secretary. Apparently this tiny clip is literally all she has ever been known to say about the LoC and mighty edifices of fairly implausible conjecture about her cluelessness are being extracted from it. The LoC does indeed do subject classifications and classifies certain books as juvenile that others may feel should not be so classified. I looked up "Lets Talk About It" by Erika Moen and it is classified as "Sex instruction for children", but it's no such thing.
8. Same as (7). I checked out the Reuters article in the link. It does the usual journalistic trick, which I find really annoying, of attaching an adjectival phrase to every name. Pete Hegseth, for instance, is "a former Fox News host". This is pure, gratuitous, propaganda. His name alone ought to do well enough for the reasonably well-informed. I just don't do clickbait.
1. The Trump administration is well aware that it doesn't have time to "work with" an entrenched hostile bureaucracy. Hence the speed, aggression, etc. It's not about "purity", it's about practicalities.
2. The drive is not for "sanitized history". The drive is for fairly true history that doesn't result in legions of worse than useless "Antifa" being unleashed on the nation, forever. Ideally, a curriculum would actually result in people who can assess conflicting claims and make judgements among them.
3. The Library of Congress probably does have some inertia with respect to the winds of politics because it is so vast and has so much real stuff. Sure there's value there, but not sure it has anything to do with the person at the top.
4. It signals nothing except a certain ruthlessness, which we all have observed already.
5. Lifted from a speech at a retirement ceremony, again.
I will post again about some of the comments here in the relatively new future.
In the meantime, this article in Scholarly Kitchen, just published today, on the Carla Hayden firing and other dismissals in other organizations (such as NARA), may be of interest. The author. Todd Carpenter, is the Executive Director of NISO and has worked in a variety of other information science-related organizations.
I will anatomize the article linked above, since it seems like an excellent example of the problem of "tribal epistemologies" as well as some other problems, I guess.
Paragraph 1: Mostly factual except for this one sentence: "The Librarian of Congress has long been a position of influence, but generally not one of contentiousness or significant controversy beyond some important policy questions around copyright." I'm not certain that this is true at all because (a) I did a quick search on the LoC's website for that controversy-stirring book "Gender Queer" and got a hit (the author gave a talk at the LoC apparently), (b) I know little about the history of the LoC since it's inception, but I bet there has been previous controversy, (c) I have spoken with a professional cataloguer who expressed frustration and virtual exhaustion wrt. the LoC cataloging choices, the issuing of new numbers and how those numbers were being assigned (politically biased). Examples were adduced that were quite convincing. So, I'ld say that the author would have been better off omitting that sentence, to get at least the first paragraph off to an unobjectionable start.
Paragraph 2: "During the nearly two-and-a-quarter centuries since the first Librarian was appointed, only three of the fourteen Librarians of Congress have had previous training or served as librarians prior to accepting the job." So, what should I conclude from that? Everybody is claiming, without any proof, that the White House press secretary is ignorant because she doesn't know the difference between your local public library and the LoC. But if the difference is so very great, why should training or experience as a public librarian be a prerequisite for the Librarian of Congress position? It's not actually clear to me that it is. Furthermore this one paragraph contains three Wikipedia citations. My favorite analysis of the swiftness with which Wikipedia articles can veer from one narrative to another is Steve Kirsch's (https://kirschsubstack.com/p/how-wikipedia-changed-me-from-being). In four days he was utterly transformed from a good guy to an evil guy and the length of his Wikipedia page was just about halved (in his case, there weren't too many citeable "bad" things, so the technique was, in this case, to expunge the "good" things). So all these citations just prove to me that Carla Hayden is liked by the Wikipedia editors. Now, to be liked by the Wikipedia editors is a misfortune that could befall anyone, but to cite a Wikipedia article any time, especially three times in one paragraph, and especially when this is a high profile politically contentious page, now that looks like real carelessness. Check the Wikipedia page's history, and there has been a torrent of edits to that very page since her firing. I didn't look any more deeply into the page history, because it would have been a waste of time. I could cover the other things in the same vein, like the selfies, but I don't wanna. Anyway nothing gained from reading this paragraph, on to the next.
Paragraph 3: First sentence is badly muddled. Second sentence seems irrelevant to me. Of course the ALA has issued a press release; that was 100% predictable. Certain Democrat party politicians have also objected; again 100% predictable. Moving on to next.
Paragraph 4: This is the "Karoline Leavitt is a knuckle dragger" paragraph. I'm getting very tired of this topic. I've already pointed out that Leavitt was likely talking about the LoC's real jobs, one of which is categorizing books, and I've already pointed out twice that there are real concerns with that. Moreover, these press briefings are a media event, Leavitt is not actually making these firing decisions. So, this paragraph is just deliberate obtuseness, gratuitous insult, and a Guardian citation. On to the next.
Paragraph 5: An explanation of one of the functions of the library, which is to track and store and whatnot every book published in the US stirred in with some lecturing and category mistakes. I am very aware of the LoC's functions because of many things, so I don't require the lecture. Unfortunately, it's stirred in with the usual category mistake: a book itself cannot be "diverse". There's also the grim word "content" to mean the various works that the library catalogues.
Paragraph 6 (the half-way point, I'm gonna take a break): This is the first bit of fact that was unknown to me: the head of the National Archives was fired in February. Then there is speculation as to why. Revenge is, basically, the author's answer. The phrasing isn't good, if someone did something that caused me to end up in the dock, I would not call that thing a "slight". My answer to the why question, though, would be policy, certainly, _and_ rancor, probably. Also, there is some deceptive phrasing and quoting: 'which seeks to control what it calls the “deep state”'. I believe the phrase is usually "dismantle the deep state", which is a phrase with a very different meaning. But I'm not sure that the National Archives are viewed as part of this deep state.
Paragraph 8: Links to some posts on X. Clearly does not understand the rhetorical purpose of the Musk posts. Misspells Jack Dorsey's name. Insinuates that Perlmutter's firing is due to Musk's position in the current government and his considerable financial and other interest in AI. This last may very well be true, but anybody can speculate. What this paragraph lacks is anything that I couldn't guess for myself.
Paragraph 9: Leads with a LinkedIn citation, sigh. Then there is the phrase "content provider communities", sigh. However, once all the dross is scraped off, this particular paragraph does serve as something of a bulletin, indicating a few people to watch, and possible purposes for the firing of Perlmutter. The second most useful paragraph so far, which is damning with faint praise.
Craig: Thank you for informing those of us who weren't familiar with her about Carla Hayden and her service to the US. Because right-wing authoritarians are working quickly to undermine and damage epistemic institutions, we need to document every step of their process.
Yes. agreed. This is no longer a case of "bothsidesism" and "whataboutism", in seeing how some perpetually point to the sins of the woke Left and progressive authoritarianism--a problem, we know, from studies of LWA (Left Wing Authoritarianism). The greater challenge of the current time is preserving institutions from the backlash and vast overreach of RWA (Rightwing Authoritarianism). In this case, it's the drive for creating an alternative reality through our epistemic institutions--our universities, our major libraries, our educational system as a whole, and erasing the more complex parts of our history that don't comport with the "approved" views of Trump 2.0 and MAGA world. The impetus here may be as much about destruction and nihilism as anything else, but always with the gloss of the "approved" beliefs covering all, with the doctrinal purity--the very horse-shoe/mirroring move that some conservatives and rightwing populists have accused the woke Left of for years.
This is an interesting read on what’s happening and how to get good out of it https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2025/05/07/could-fear-equity-revive-campus-free-speech-opinion
Thanks for sharing this article--yes, the Jussim / Maranto article gives a very balanced perspective and what might work to transcend the mutual recriminations, censorship, and harassment along ideological lines in higher ed. At least it's hopeful and encouraging. But it really is about norms and culture , and no blunderbuss about enforcing "viewpoint diversity" and *balancing* liberal/progressive and conservative/rightwing perspectives is likely to work. At the moment, many institutions are under assault in one way or another. Jussim and Maranto are right in pointing out that universities need to undertake internal reforms. HxA is obviously about reforming higher ed institutions, not undermining them or making them conform to a particular political agenda. The great hazard at the current moment, in my view, is the toll taken on institutions--on faculty in particular--by the blowback from Trump 2.0 that's vastly overreaching, causing confusion, uncertainty, and even further demoralization, after a fraught decade of excesses from woke/progressive authoritarians.
I'm afraid I find this article almost as hysterical and delusional as a typical ALA press release.
I must admit, it's the first time of a few decades of writing in the field of librarianship and English that I've ever been accused of writing. anything remotely like a "hysterical and delusional" ALA press release. Guess I've discovered a new genre by accident! I'll have to get better at it.
There's nothing special about ALA press releases, they're pretty much clickbait. The reason for the comparison is that usually the ALA is writing about something more or less connected to libraries. I look for more substance on HitS, that's all.
Wow, mulhern, that got nasty very quickly: hysterical, delusional, clickbait. I'm not a librarian, but I guess I expected better from people who represent the values and principles of librarianship. I disagree with your take, as much as there is of it. What I don't understand is why you chose to respond to a serious argument in this way.
Hiya. I apologized to Craig Gibson right upfront, that's the "I'm afraid" and also pulled my punches, that's the "almost". But I feel it's necessary to tell the truth as I see it. The "clickbait" described ALA press releases since Craig Gibson seemed to not understand my point at first. I can do no more in the way of restraint. Why do you think I represent the values and principles of "librarianship"? I represent the values and principles of me.
That's nothing to brag about, but I stand corrected!
Reminder that all comments are expected to abide by the HxA Way: https://heterodoxacademy.org/resources/the-hxa-way/
"Intelligent discussions of what is appropriate within “DEI” are now totally missing in the actions of the administration, because “DEI” is weaponized as a bludgeon to punish those who have questions about the worldview the administration wants to impose within leading universities and cultural institutions. Hence the drive for “epistemic secession” to establish the alternative reality—and sanitized history-- that the administration favors."
This is exactly what happened when DEI entered via the left. It may indeed be a tit for tat backlash or epistemic cold war. Trump is correct that libraries and other epistemic institutions have been ideologically captured. Isn't this just more changing of the guard as we've seen with all other appointed positions within government?
Ideally, llibraries would have maintained neutrality and be above the fray. But that has not been the case. So, Trump has identified libraries as a front in epistemic battles and acts accordingly. Go ahead and bemoan the epistemic culture war, but don't pretend this is worse or new from what we've just lived through.
Some of the comments here, and in the ALP listserv discussion earlier today, remind me much of conservative writer Douglas Murray's recent analogy: a flare goes up, and it shows exactly where everyone stands. The reactions to the Hayden and Perlmutter dismissals are pretty revealing.
My view--Trump is acting out of revenge and his own dominance displays on multiple fronts. He has the crude sense about what "ideological capture" means, not even at the level discussed here. He wants very much another kind of "ideological capture", per Chris Rufo, the form of "patriotic education" that masquerades as restoring the *real history* of the country. Trump doesn't know basic facts about American history, our system of government, and it shows constantly. So if you want to claim that Trump has any intention 'restoring a balance,' I disagree. He isn't knowledgeable enough personally to know what that would look like. But he will definitely rely on surrogates, and Rufo and others like Rufo are happy to oblige.
Yes, I can say the situation is worse, or certainly trending worse. It's very clear to me that organizations like FIRE and HxA--which are determinedly nonpartisan--are sounding the warnings about many of Trump's actions, against international students, against media organizations, against pollsters that Trump doesn't like. HxA President John Tomasi has been quite eloquent in appealing to the Trump administration about areas of common interest, to foster open inquiry and viewpoint diversity. If you think that Trump is interested in either of those aspirations, I will disagree. Greg Lukianoff, a champion of free speech and First Amendment, has grown very concerned about some of Trump's order and actions, particularly against 501c3 organizations--like FIRE itself! In an case, both FIRE and HxA's statements and warnings are more numerous and qualitatively different from any issued in the "before times."
FIRE did issue warnings against the Biden administration in the social media censorship case, but of course, the Supreme Court (mostly conservatives, as you know), did not rule in favor of one group that brought a suit about being censored on Facebook--because the
Court found that the plaintiffs did not have standing.
As for your other comment that Trump is "straightforward" or "honest" in any way, I will say yes, he's straightforward in that he regards some fellow Americans as not as political opponents, but as enemies. The blathering about "far Left Marxists" as applying to all liberals, progressives, centrists, or anyone he doesn't like, is a regular feature of his rhetoric. Any suggestion that he's actually acting in good faith on much of anything, I
find laughable.
It looks to me like libraries (well, the Library of Congress for sure) are caught in the crossfire of the culture wars that never go away. I will not likely be persuaded that Trump wants much more than another lap in his revenge tour in the recent firings at LoC--or the military service academy collection mandates.
I have written more than once on this substack about the censoriousness and the excesses of the woke left, in higher ed, in publishing, and in libraries. I understand much of what you're saying here. But if you want to make the claim that there's some kind of equivalence between "before" and "now" (especially with Trump 2.0), I will respectfully disagree, while acknowledging there's a greater need for our fractured conversations to
improve, with better listening and mutual willingness to understand the difficulties this country--and others--have experienced in the past several decades. That requires some perspective that can't come only from the heat of the current moment.
It sounds like you think that the progressive ideology that Trump is battling owns the epistemic high ground or the "truth." The progressives, in fact, have been literally re-writing history and scientific facts, which I can see evidenced in the children's book collection at my local public library.
Saying that Trump and his administration are acting from a place of only petty revenge and ignorance is probably underestimating the strategic epistemic struggle we're witnessing.
Firing a political appointee like Hayden is fair play. The disciplinary oustings for ideological differences condoned under Biden of rank and file employees for refusing vax mandates, or not being in line with race and gender groupthink, strike me as far more reprehensible and authoritarian.
Ousting pregnant women from their employment because they were unwilling to administer a dodgy pharmaceutical to their developing foetus is my highwater mark for authoritarianism so far.
What really bugs me about this is that there's no indication that Trump is ousting the Librarian of Congress in violation of the law. It's a position by presidential appointment. Trump is being very clear about the epistemic battle.
Under the previous admin, there were many people within libraries and academia who were disciplined or lost jobs for ideological reasons, but it was couched as being done in the name of public health, ie covid safety or racism. There was a very real purge of the "non compliant" that occurred. The dishonesty, gaslighting, and unethical behavior that occurred then was far worse than the straightforward approach that Trump is taking. So I don't think the firing of Hayden is a clarity moment telling us that Trump is worse than the far left progressive authoritarianism we experienced during covid.
I don't recall ever reading anything that made me skeptical of Hayden so I'm glad she got to finish most of her term. I see that there was chatter that she was "anti-Trump;" if true her dismissal probably is typical changing of the guard.
It is unsettling if the administration doesn't understand or appreciate the role of the Library of Congress as a vast research repository, and I think the firing of Perlmutter and any potential connection to her paper on A.I. and Fair Use Guidelines merits further exploration.
I do share your frustration that the censorship industrial complex that developed under the last administration hasn't merited the same level of concern.
Also, it has been difficult to tell what exactly has been going on with DOGE since mainstream media accounts are superficial at best, ideologically slanted at worst. I feel like Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying do a pretty good job here of parsing some of the layoffs/ grant cuts in the science world, starting at the one hour seventeen mark. It takes a lot of time and research to reach any kind of informed conclusions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0lmfyjQx8k
My response to the essay, more or less paragraph by paragraph:
1. Everything that is actually happening seems to rather chaotic right now. So I'm not sure what it is that is being clarified.
2. Nah. He fired her "because". Apparently he's within his right to do it. He's moving fast and wants to appoint someone different, that's all.
3. I wrestled with this paragraph for a while and then just gave up trying to comment on it.
4. This paragraph would be a great one if she was formally retiring instead of being fired. That is, it lacks substance, but would fit in well at a retirement ceremony.
5. Same as (4).
6. I think "diverse leadership" is a phrase that contains a category mistake. I like the phrase "tribal epistemology", don't understand how you think it connects to the rest of what you're saying and wonder why the authors of the article are so one sided about the evidence for it existing and among what groups.
7. Cheap shot at the White House Press Secretary. Apparently this tiny clip is literally all she has ever been known to say about the LoC and mighty edifices of fairly implausible conjecture about her cluelessness are being extracted from it. The LoC does indeed do subject classifications and classifies certain books as juvenile that others may feel should not be so classified. I looked up "Lets Talk About It" by Erika Moen and it is classified as "Sex instruction for children", but it's no such thing.
8. Same as (7). I checked out the Reuters article in the link. It does the usual journalistic trick, which I find really annoying, of attaching an adjectival phrase to every name. Pete Hegseth, for instance, is "a former Fox News host". This is pure, gratuitous, propaganda. His name alone ought to do well enough for the reasonably well-informed. I just don't do clickbait.
...next up, "Assaulting Epistemic Institution
"Assaulting Epistemic Institutions"
1. The Trump administration is well aware that it doesn't have time to "work with" an entrenched hostile bureaucracy. Hence the speed, aggression, etc. It's not about "purity", it's about practicalities.
2. The drive is not for "sanitized history". The drive is for fairly true history that doesn't result in legions of worse than useless "Antifa" being unleashed on the nation, forever. Ideally, a curriculum would actually result in people who can assess conflicting claims and make judgements among them.
3. The Library of Congress probably does have some inertia with respect to the winds of politics because it is so vast and has so much real stuff. Sure there's value there, but not sure it has anything to do with the person at the top.
4. It signals nothing except a certain ruthlessness, which we all have observed already.
5. Lifted from a speech at a retirement ceremony, again.
6. Same as (5).
Would you be interested in further elaborating on your points in a guest post? https://hxlibraries.substack.com/p/information-for-writers
I will post again about some of the comments here in the relatively new future.
In the meantime, this article in Scholarly Kitchen, just published today, on the Carla Hayden firing and other dismissals in other organizations (such as NARA), may be of interest. The author. Todd Carpenter, is the Executive Director of NISO and has worked in a variety of other information science-related organizations.
https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/05/15/a-tumultuous-week-at-the-library-of-congress/?informz=1&nbd=10fcc72d-5e75-45d8-9bdd-654a43a4ba8c&nbd_source=informz
I will anatomize the article linked above, since it seems like an excellent example of the problem of "tribal epistemologies" as well as some other problems, I guess.
Paragraph 1: Mostly factual except for this one sentence: "The Librarian of Congress has long been a position of influence, but generally not one of contentiousness or significant controversy beyond some important policy questions around copyright." I'm not certain that this is true at all because (a) I did a quick search on the LoC's website for that controversy-stirring book "Gender Queer" and got a hit (the author gave a talk at the LoC apparently), (b) I know little about the history of the LoC since it's inception, but I bet there has been previous controversy, (c) I have spoken with a professional cataloguer who expressed frustration and virtual exhaustion wrt. the LoC cataloging choices, the issuing of new numbers and how those numbers were being assigned (politically biased). Examples were adduced that were quite convincing. So, I'ld say that the author would have been better off omitting that sentence, to get at least the first paragraph off to an unobjectionable start.
Paragraph 2: "During the nearly two-and-a-quarter centuries since the first Librarian was appointed, only three of the fourteen Librarians of Congress have had previous training or served as librarians prior to accepting the job." So, what should I conclude from that? Everybody is claiming, without any proof, that the White House press secretary is ignorant because she doesn't know the difference between your local public library and the LoC. But if the difference is so very great, why should training or experience as a public librarian be a prerequisite for the Librarian of Congress position? It's not actually clear to me that it is. Furthermore this one paragraph contains three Wikipedia citations. My favorite analysis of the swiftness with which Wikipedia articles can veer from one narrative to another is Steve Kirsch's (https://kirschsubstack.com/p/how-wikipedia-changed-me-from-being). In four days he was utterly transformed from a good guy to an evil guy and the length of his Wikipedia page was just about halved (in his case, there weren't too many citeable "bad" things, so the technique was, in this case, to expunge the "good" things). So all these citations just prove to me that Carla Hayden is liked by the Wikipedia editors. Now, to be liked by the Wikipedia editors is a misfortune that could befall anyone, but to cite a Wikipedia article any time, especially three times in one paragraph, and especially when this is a high profile politically contentious page, now that looks like real carelessness. Check the Wikipedia page's history, and there has been a torrent of edits to that very page since her firing. I didn't look any more deeply into the page history, because it would have been a waste of time. I could cover the other things in the same vein, like the selfies, but I don't wanna. Anyway nothing gained from reading this paragraph, on to the next.
Paragraph 3: First sentence is badly muddled. Second sentence seems irrelevant to me. Of course the ALA has issued a press release; that was 100% predictable. Certain Democrat party politicians have also objected; again 100% predictable. Moving on to next.
Paragraph 4: This is the "Karoline Leavitt is a knuckle dragger" paragraph. I'm getting very tired of this topic. I've already pointed out that Leavitt was likely talking about the LoC's real jobs, one of which is categorizing books, and I've already pointed out twice that there are real concerns with that. Moreover, these press briefings are a media event, Leavitt is not actually making these firing decisions. So, this paragraph is just deliberate obtuseness, gratuitous insult, and a Guardian citation. On to the next.
Paragraph 5: An explanation of one of the functions of the library, which is to track and store and whatnot every book published in the US stirred in with some lecturing and category mistakes. I am very aware of the LoC's functions because of many things, so I don't require the lecture. Unfortunately, it's stirred in with the usual category mistake: a book itself cannot be "diverse". There's also the grim word "content" to mean the various works that the library catalogues.
Paragraph 6 (the half-way point, I'm gonna take a break): This is the first bit of fact that was unknown to me: the head of the National Archives was fired in February. Then there is speculation as to why. Revenge is, basically, the author's answer. The phrasing isn't good, if someone did something that caused me to end up in the dock, I would not call that thing a "slight". My answer to the why question, though, would be policy, certainly, _and_ rancor, probably. Also, there is some deceptive phrasing and quoting: 'which seeks to control what it calls the “deep state”'. I believe the phrase is usually "dismantle the deep state", which is a phrase with a very different meaning. But I'm not sure that the National Archives are viewed as part of this deep state.
Paragraph 7: Contains a useful link to the actual report on generative AI by the copyright office, but otherwise conveys nothing substantive.
Paragraph 8: Links to some posts on X. Clearly does not understand the rhetorical purpose of the Musk posts. Misspells Jack Dorsey's name. Insinuates that Perlmutter's firing is due to Musk's position in the current government and his considerable financial and other interest in AI. This last may very well be true, but anybody can speculate. What this paragraph lacks is anything that I couldn't guess for myself.
Paragraph 9: Leads with a LinkedIn citation, sigh. Then there is the phrase "content provider communities", sigh. However, once all the dross is scraped off, this particular paragraph does serve as something of a bulletin, indicating a few people to watch, and possible purposes for the firing of Perlmutter. The second most useful paragraph so far, which is damning with faint praise.