Thank you! The post is updated to include two examples that were presented at the HxLibraries Symposium, Curiosity, Controversy, and Intellectual Courage: The Cost of Free Black Thought and Respecting Privacy of Thought in DEI Training. A major oversight on my part!
Due to the some of the questionable practices of the review journals and the disruption of the publishing industry in general, I think (public) libraries, under the "popular demand" section of their collection development plans, should make it a policy to routinely purchase Amazon bestsellers (although with all the various categories the approach would have to be well thought out).
Yes, thank you Sarah, this is a very good tour, with examples, of the myriad issues with the progressive or intersectional Left belief system espoused as the default belief system for the whole profession.
Point of origin for some of this world view in the library field, for anyone interested, is the 1993 Cheryl Harris law review article, "Whiteness as Property," https://harvardlawreview.org/print/no-volume/whiteness-as-property/. It is often cited as an authoritative explanation of how the metaphysical construct of "whiteness" permeates all sociopolitical and legal relations in society, which in turn, necessitates the need for a certain kind of activism to counter it. And of course that extends into the supposed rationale for opposing institutional or library neutrality in all circumstances.
A just-published article co-authored by Cory Clark of the Adversarial Collaboration Project is on point here about trust problems with organizations and associations (and scholarly journals) that become overt political advocates or actors in the name of any cause:
"Why do Organizations Take Political Stances? A Review of Reasons and Risks."
Thank you for writing this, Sarah. It can often feel like the inside threat is greater than that of outside actors. The worst thing is that those of us who might be in a position to counter the threat by changing policy or just providing counter-arguments are cowed by the threat to our jobs. Some of us are even afraid of our own employees.
I've been thinking about the recent concerns about the lack of viewpoint diversity in academic researchers (https://jonathanhaidt.com/viewpoint-diversity/) As you document, there is a similar lack of viewpoint diversity in librarianship. Ideally, that shouldn't matter b/c the Library Bill of Rights (LBR), the Freedom to Read, ect. tell us not to use our positions to impose our views on patrons.
But I see two ways that librarians can deviate from those principals when there is a lack of viewpoint diversity in the profession:
1. By explicitly and consciously rejecting neutrality b/c we believe that the political goals that we seek are too important for us not use the influence of our positions (whatever that may be) to advance what we see as the correct political goals.
2. We may not consciously reject neutrality and strongly advocate for the principles of the LBR. However, because we live and work in an ideological monoculture, our political preconceptions may become invisible to us like water to fish. Thus, selection decisions and reference recommendations that don't seem political to us (we're just focusing on quality, accuracy, intellectual rigor, and responding to mis or disinformation) may involve assumptions that those outside of our monoculture would see as wildly partisan. What looks like common sense or common knowledge to us b/c it is shared by everyone in our intellectual environment may not be common to those swimming in different ideological waters.
In some ways, 1 is worse b/c it involves a rejection of principle, but it is also easier to see and respond to. Most of the specific examples you list in the article involve explicit rejection of LBR principles. Problem 2 is harder to document and probably more common. (And I think that it often slides into problem 1 b/c it's harder to appreciate the benefits of LBR principles if everyone outside of your monoculture looks like they are crazy, misinformed, and dangerous).
So, I can see a danger in the lack of viewpoint diversity, but I don't know how it can be addressed. I don't think that the lack is due to explicit hiring bias just as the fact that 80% of librarians are white women is not due to explicit hiring bias (at least not in the last 20-30 years). For a job that usually requires a masters degree, it is not a highly paid, high status occupation, and I doubt that there are lots of conservative Hispanic or Black men (for example) who are being turned away by librarian hiring committees.
"a new study just published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, to which I contributed, provides the highest quality investigation to date on gender bias in hiring practices, and the results are surprising"
I'm pretty confident the colleagues and administrators who, in June 2018, were involved in, or condoned, meddling [1] with my academic freedom [2] would score high on the "woke scale" [3]. Would be interesting to see the scale administered in libraries.
Also, I think efforts by "anti-woke" librarians -- such as a couple posts on this Substack -- against stuff like trans story-time and "gender ideology"-congruent reading materials qualify as "insider threats."
Thank you, Rob! I will have to go back through Brian Erb's talk and add the examples he highlighted, with a hat tip.
Re: "anti-woke" librarians, I agree these constitute insider threats if such anti-woke expressions result in restricted access to the materials under (re)consideration. Otherwise, I view them as legitimate counterspeech -- as does ALA (see Informal Complaints and Expressions of Concern, points 1-2 -- "Acknowledge that every person has the right to question library resources." -- https://www.ala.org/tools/challengesupport/respond ). If anyone is aware of "anti-woke" complaints / expressions of concern from library employees resulting in the restriction of access to library materials or services, please advise!
Thank you Sarah for this excellent, well-organized, and timely summary of this troubling phenomenon.
Thank you! The post is updated to include two examples that were presented at the HxLibraries Symposium, Curiosity, Controversy, and Intellectual Courage: The Cost of Free Black Thought and Respecting Privacy of Thought in DEI Training. A major oversight on my part!
https://psu.pb.unizin.org/hxlibraries24curiositycontroversycourage/
I welcome suggestions for other additions in the comments.
Due to the some of the questionable practices of the review journals and the disruption of the publishing industry in general, I think (public) libraries, under the "popular demand" section of their collection development plans, should make it a policy to routinely purchase Amazon bestsellers (although with all the various categories the approach would have to be well thought out).
Yes, thank you Sarah, this is a very good tour, with examples, of the myriad issues with the progressive or intersectional Left belief system espoused as the default belief system for the whole profession.
Point of origin for some of this world view in the library field, for anyone interested, is the 1993 Cheryl Harris law review article, "Whiteness as Property," https://harvardlawreview.org/print/no-volume/whiteness-as-property/. It is often cited as an authoritative explanation of how the metaphysical construct of "whiteness" permeates all sociopolitical and legal relations in society, which in turn, necessitates the need for a certain kind of activism to counter it. And of course that extends into the supposed rationale for opposing institutional or library neutrality in all circumstances.
A just-published article co-authored by Cory Clark of the Adversarial Collaboration Project is on point here about trust problems with organizations and associations (and scholarly journals) that become overt political advocates or actors in the name of any cause:
"Why do Organizations Take Political Stances? A Review of Reasons and Risks."
https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/spc3.12985
Great piece, Sarah!
Thank you, Brian! I added links to / examples from your talk with hat-tips to you.
Thank you for writing this, Sarah. It can often feel like the inside threat is greater than that of outside actors. The worst thing is that those of us who might be in a position to counter the threat by changing policy or just providing counter-arguments are cowed by the threat to our jobs. Some of us are even afraid of our own employees.
I will share two links from Canada from the past year indicating potential censorship in the form of an "Inside Threat": Ontario: https://open.substack.com/pub/hxlibraries/p/library-bureaucracy-as-scolds-bridle?r=1mq6c5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web and British Columbia: https://www.jccf.ca/powell-river-public-library-receives-legal-warning-not-to-cancel-public-event/
Thank you, Amy! I will add these shortly with a hat tip to you.
Good article.
I've been thinking about the recent concerns about the lack of viewpoint diversity in academic researchers (https://jonathanhaidt.com/viewpoint-diversity/) As you document, there is a similar lack of viewpoint diversity in librarianship. Ideally, that shouldn't matter b/c the Library Bill of Rights (LBR), the Freedom to Read, ect. tell us not to use our positions to impose our views on patrons.
But I see two ways that librarians can deviate from those principals when there is a lack of viewpoint diversity in the profession:
1. By explicitly and consciously rejecting neutrality b/c we believe that the political goals that we seek are too important for us not use the influence of our positions (whatever that may be) to advance what we see as the correct political goals.
2. We may not consciously reject neutrality and strongly advocate for the principles of the LBR. However, because we live and work in an ideological monoculture, our political preconceptions may become invisible to us like water to fish. Thus, selection decisions and reference recommendations that don't seem political to us (we're just focusing on quality, accuracy, intellectual rigor, and responding to mis or disinformation) may involve assumptions that those outside of our monoculture would see as wildly partisan. What looks like common sense or common knowledge to us b/c it is shared by everyone in our intellectual environment may not be common to those swimming in different ideological waters.
In some ways, 1 is worse b/c it involves a rejection of principle, but it is also easier to see and respond to. Most of the specific examples you list in the article involve explicit rejection of LBR principles. Problem 2 is harder to document and probably more common. (And I think that it often slides into problem 1 b/c it's harder to appreciate the benefits of LBR principles if everyone outside of your monoculture looks like they are crazy, misinformed, and dangerous).
So, I can see a danger in the lack of viewpoint diversity, but I don't know how it can be addressed. I don't think that the lack is due to explicit hiring bias just as the fact that 80% of librarians are white women is not due to explicit hiring bias (at least not in the last 20-30 years). For a job that usually requires a masters degree, it is not a highly paid, high status occupation, and I doubt that there are lots of conservative Hispanic or Black men (for example) who are being turned away by librarian hiring committees.
"a new study just published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, to which I contributed, provides the highest quality investigation to date on gender bias in hiring practices, and the results are surprising"
https://www.queermajority.com/essays-all/success-men-now-face-more-hiring-discrimination
I'm pretty confident the colleagues and administrators who, in June 2018, were involved in, or condoned, meddling [1] with my academic freedom [2] would score high on the "woke scale" [3]. Would be interesting to see the scale administered in libraries.
Also, I think efforts by "anti-woke" librarians -- such as a couple posts on this Substack -- against stuff like trans story-time and "gender ideology"-congruent reading materials qualify as "insider threats."
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4uUMnIuF5s&t=179s
[2] https://x.com/SicaRob/status/1704206944121278733
[3] https://oskarilahtinen.fi/1/critical-social-justice-attitude-study-q-a/
>Would be interesting to see the scale administered in libraries.
Agreed. The codebook is available on OSF https://osf.io/k2qx9/.
Thank you, Rob! I will have to go back through Brian Erb's talk and add the examples he highlighted, with a hat tip.
Re: "anti-woke" librarians, I agree these constitute insider threats if such anti-woke expressions result in restricted access to the materials under (re)consideration. Otherwise, I view them as legitimate counterspeech -- as does ALA (see Informal Complaints and Expressions of Concern, points 1-2 -- "Acknowledge that every person has the right to question library resources." -- https://www.ala.org/tools/challengesupport/respond ). If anyone is aware of "anti-woke" complaints / expressions of concern from library employees resulting in the restriction of access to library materials or services, please advise!
Hi Sarah,
I'm opposed to the *substance* of their perspective, not its legitimacy as counter-speech.
Nice list.
The Chelmsford Public Library in Chelmsford, MA refused or withdrew the use of its meeting room for a "Pastor Story Hour" but changed its mind when it found out the legal implications. There are a lot of links, here's one: https://www.christianpost.com/news/library-allows-pastor-story-hour-event-after-previously-canceling.html.
Thank you -- added with hat-tip to you!