One of my first projects (1979) was a compilation of readings and an annotated bibliography, "The Role of Women in Librarianship: The Entry, Advancement and Struggle for Equalization in One Profession , 1876-1976."
Women couldn't speak at early ALA conferences and had men make their points.
It's a hard lift for me to see how so much has changed. in 1979 we were advocating that women be given equal opportunity with our male colleagues for opportunities in library admin and on faculty.
Just looked him up. All these years I thought it was John Dewey that came up with the cataloging system. I remember taking one philosophy class as an undergraduate in which we had to read a collection of 20th century essays which included one of John Dewey's and thinking he was a polymath.
Melvil seemed to have some "issues" - at least, according to Wikipedia.John Dewey's wives seemed to have fared better.
Thanks for writing this very timely article, Michael and Amy!
I'm starting to ponder even more how library neutrality, pluralism, and diversity of thought, all intersect to impact policies such as they ones used here (in not a good way), in both of those libraries. And how "The Certainty Trap" allied with misapplication of policies may lead institutions (or their administrators) to do questionable, inappropriate, or potentially illegal things. More and more, in fact, I think "The Certainty Trap" is one of the great professional hazards, in causing misjudgments and bad decisions. In these cases, surely, a bureaucratic dogmatism was at work.
Maybe there's a special place for "Perspective-taking" as an administrative competency or leadership skill--the ability to imagine how affected individuals or groups will understand a policy turned against them. The administrators in both of these situations obviously didn't believe they were allowed to make independent judgments in order to engage in "perspective-taking", so therefore applied a policy rigidly and inappropriately in a way that didn't adhere to larger legal and rights-based schemes which they should certainly be aware of or be trained in. How could professional development in "perspective-taking" and understanding the perils of "The Certainty Trap" be used to build on what FIRE and others suggested in these situations (and that you're recommending)?
I really like this question "How could professional development in "perspective-taking" and understanding the perils of "The Certainty Trap" be used to build on what FIRE and others suggested in these situations (and that you're recommending)?" . Professional development is a great way to help gain tools to deal with the always changing landscapes. The Certainty Trap is a concept that is not known to many and may be unlikely to be discovered given that many managers and asking people to focus on empathy, which Paul Bloom shows in his book "Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion" leads to a lack of being able to understand and empathize with those you are not focusing your empathy on. It also leads to irrational decisions. Of course historic intellectual freedom writers have pointed out that noone holds a monopoly on truth so how can anyone be 100% certain? https://paulbloom.net/#books
This is a good point about empathy and how it can become misdirected. We can well recall the ALA Task Force's proposal re: "Radical Empathy" as a core value. Just as "The Certainty Trap" is anti-empirical, and often leads to unfounded claims and bad decisions, "Radical Empathy" or inappropriate uses of empathy in applying policy can also lead to bad decisions. Not a surprise, that It's also the selective uses of empathy in protecting some groups or constituents from "harm" that are often present in our institutions.
I'd advocate for professional development (or LIS curricula with courses in administration or management including some training re: "The Certainty Trap"--or something similar--to prepare administrators to make better decisions. Possibly the same training could become part of professional development more generally, to avoid the ideologically-inflected workshops and trainings we see too much of now. Or at least offer an alternative option to those ideologically-influenced workshops.
Obviously I hate this sort of censorship and the demonizing of legitimate disourse around gender and sex, but Moms for Liberty is hardly an advocate of open inquiry - they are rampantly censoring and chilling speech in Florida. Rufo and these conservative front organizations are openly attempting to follow the woke play book in taking over institutions in the name of fighting some moral enemy with the ultimate intent to freeze out all but trad con, religious views. They weaponize a legitmate issue in the same way the woke weaponized racism for power.
As much as I like this Substack--I read it with enthusiasm-- I think a tendency towards "qui non est mecum, contra me est" is there. So because we know that there is a semi-secret willingness of left-leaning librarians to shut discussion down, pretend that intelligent dissent doesn't exist, not review certain books, etc., some of us might presume that the "other side" is less apt to do that when, in fact, right now the spirit of censorship is running rampant--and equally selectively--through the ideological cesspools on the pop-culture left and pop-culture right. In other words, if you're genuinely open-minded and fair, the enemy of my enemy is also an a**hole.
That is definitely why I write about the "illiberal left". I get information regularly from my professional organization and in my daily life about the "illiberal right". The news from PEN America and Unite Against Book Bans have maybe not covered any news of censorship from the "illiberal left"? Why would that be?
I get the counter-points. My comment was just meant to be a warning that JUST BECAUSE the left-leaning library world IS illiberal--and they are, because they're doing the mental gymnastics that political conviction entails--doesn't mean that some counter-movement of "right-leaning" librarians is or would be better. They're probably going to be kooks, too.
I would be interested in a thorough analysis of the censorship attempts by the right. For example, attempts to limit something like "critical race theory" to being taught as one viewpoint among many is something I would support, if that is indeed going on somewhere. I would not support outright bans. The whole "don't say gay" thing was somewhat misrepresented in the media, from what I understand. We always welcome pieces if someone wants to delve into that-- hint hint.
There is a difference. I support the teaching of texts and having them available. Today's society is a great time to be a teacher and really use those skills to help people think, be critical and formulate their own beliefs/values. I am sure extremely hard and stressful though! Thanks to all the great teachers out there. I have appreciated learning from those teaching in the library world.
I would love to see a counter movement of right leaning librarians - but with the same organizational constraints in administrative policy the current left leaning ones should be, but aren't constrained by.
Brian, the podcast I linked to above “Blocked & Reported Episode 180” discusses the public perception of Moms for Liberty and gives context about the local Yolo Chapter that sponsored the Davis event. The information shared was surprising and worth a listen IMO. If you access that podcast on the web instead of in the Substack app it offers a free 7 day trial so you can listen to that episode for free if interested.
I listen to Blocked and Reported religiously as a premium member and heard that episode. Of course I think these ideological librarians have lost their minds and should have known they were being set up to look stupid and childish. I am a huge critic of gender ideology having a detransitioning niece misserved by gender affirming care and medically transitioned as a minor while missing an opportunity to treat her actual issues while she had insurance to do so. But I also live in Florida and am a Director at our state library consortia and have seen that sadly the anti-wokeness crusades we get with DeSantis is just an effort of the same old religious fundamentalists to seize back the apparatus using the same infiltrate institutions tactics the woke used. Rufo has said so many times. My library consortia is now fielding a challenge instigated by Moms for Liberty to remove books and databases we fund for the colleges but by statute also make available for HS IB and honors students. Moms for Liberty is like Diversity, Equity and Inclusion - sneak an ideology in to a morally virtuous name and dare people to disagree without being tarred as against the virtue. I don't think I should have to.choose between the "transwomen are women" people and the "God hates gays" people as I appear to have to in Florida.
Important points for sure Brian! The article made a point of saying “that this analysis is not concerned with the substance of the claims of the respective speakers” as it’s about defending intellectual freedom for all. When one sees it taken away from a group, that’s a critical time to speak up and reassert that intellectual freedom is important and should be protected. Your points make me think of what Ed Remus said in the below YouTube video about librarians having the skills and institutional positions to curate these public discussions where there are many varied widely held views on controversial topics. I would suspect if a librarian had helped organize a talk on the issue in Yolo County that they would have used their skills to curate a talk that didn’t have Moms for Liberty as part of the program. Maybe this would have satisfied the informational needs of the local Moms for Liberty Chapter leader who scheduled this talk and then maybe all of this would have been avoided. It sounds from the report on Blocked and Reported that the Chapter leader has been ostracized by her community and targeted based on her viewpoint and she turned to Moms for Liberty as she heard of them and saw they would stand up for her desire to explore gender ideology and engage the public in a discussion of gender ideology. I think it’s important to note that likely most members of these types of groups are not radicals but are politically homeless and looking for someone who will engage on the topics at hand. If these mostly middle-of-the-road view-type political people had access to public forums that weren’t polarized I would suspect that groups like Moms for Liberty would see a large decrease in engagement. https://youtu.be/g6t7IC1uxtM?si=jKsDU_GeLx3Q1aZV
I am sort of making a broader point that it is very hard to know where to turn to put a stop to this censorious and empirically dubious critical social justice madness when the face of the only people taking steps to do anything about it are equally compromised in both their orientation to free expression/thought and their desire to seize the apparatus of institutions to push an ideology. And living in Florida and being the position I am in in the library/academic world here I feel like I am caught in a vice between too crazy axe-griding poles and the people who best articulate the problems of critical social justice and the capture of academia are slowly making the mistake of not seeing DeSantis and his cronies like Rufo, Corcoran, and Jason Spier doing the "correcting" here in Florida for what they are. I am feeling like I need to run for Governor myself since literally nobody seems to be able to get this right. I work with librarians at the 40 public Florida institutions every day, including New College, and I can tell you that I know many that find this social justice stuff overboard, but no way are they going to stand up to it as long as the only counter voice they hear is people saying gay marriage was a mistake and that the loss of Christianity is destroying society or, worse, people screaming about groomers. Obviously I think Moms for Liberty should have a platform anywhere and I hate being put in a position where they seem like the sane reasonable ones as I know that they have been and will be ever more captured by ideologues just as similar groups on the left have been.
That sounds extremely difficult. I can't imagine working and living in that environment. I bet you have gained a lot of deep insight being involved with this huge change in your state.
Herzog pegged Rufo perfectly years ago. I am not sure what people are missing here - he has repeatedly and openly said he admires the tactical acumen of critical social justice activists and wants conservatives to use the same tactics to silence and destroy opposition. In Florida, he just fired a librarian at New College named Helene Gold simply because her CV has some critical librarianship stuff in it. Now I think that stuff is nonsense, but if you claim you don't think progressives should have political litmus tests for hiring, how can you turn around and do that. You just simply don't let the critical theory people have access to administrative policy and get them used to the idea that their ideas aren't going to be allowed to shout people down, but don't fire them for merely believing certain things. Rufo would be rightly incensed if we fired Southern Baptist faculty merely on the possibility they might teach creationist nonsense - hell, he would defend their right to do so! We have all seen "racism" concept creeped into applying to anything a person wants to ban and it is clear the political activist anti-woke just label as "critical theory" anything they want to ban. I don't think the answer to woke capture of institutions is to fire them all - it is to keep the administrative apparatus of the institutions separate from the curriculum and institute a few simple policies preventing the use of political litmus tests in hiring and protections for speech and viewpoint diversity. As soon as we say as certain line of inquiry is off limits, be it ones accused of being racist or critical theory, soon enough anything you want to ban because it is unkind to your ideology will be lumped into that category.
Brian, I agree with you, how difficult it is to find some kind of well-reasoned way to preserve academic freedom but not allow Critical Social Justice activism to run amok in institutions. That's why I think the AFA (Academic Freedom Alliance) is mostly getting it right in its statements about current politics affecting academic freedom in your state. I'm seeing some of the same tendencies (though not to to same degree) here in OH. Agree as well about Rufo and the particular kind of activism he's bringing to bear there (and elsewhere, wherever he can). I think
Rufo's recent book gives the blueprint for what he wants to do and he's very clear about it but there's just no real nuance with him. I think that Yascha Mounk's forthcoming book on the same general topic of preserving liberalism and academic freedom promises a much better approach in the midst of all this polarization.
Thanks for the book idea! I will put Yascha Mounk's "The Identity Trap: A story of ideas and power in our time" on my reading list. https://www.yaschamounk.com/
A lawyer representing the Lake County School Board, apparently at the behest of Moms for Liberty, just requested my state mandated library consortium - Florida Virtual Campus - release our database license terms to their office, as they appear to be taking exception with some GVRL reference titles and databases that we fund for the FCS and SUS that we also, by statute, must make available to high school honors and IB students. See if you can guess which ones:
Scared the crap out of one of my staff as they tried to scare her into handing them over going outside of proper sunshine request channels. So these are the people who claim to be fighting for viewpoint diversity and against censorship. As long as Republicans and their activists act like this, I can't do anything but vote for Democrats, as much as I wish they would come to their senses. I obviously find most of the so-called research in these databases heavy on DEI nonsense dubious since those fields are completely captured by activists and have only one viewpoint they will publish. But it doesn't have to be that way and I don't want to silence whole fields of inquiry, especially ones that done right have the potential to illuminate important pieces of problems we need to solve.
I'm not going to bother weighing in on the political aspects here. You all know my position on this stuff. However, I have to point out that the London Public Library event, according to this CBC news article (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/how-woke-won-author-london-library-refusal-1.6846015), was not a library-space booking, but a rental. An Ontario court ruled in the case of Weld v. Ottawa Public Library that when *renting* space, a library is not acting according to the Public Libraries Act, and can therefore refuse to rent on whatever grounds it wants. Indeed, *renting* space is itself an abrogation of the provision of *public* space, so the library is not acting in a public capacity at all. Whatever else is going on, London PL did not even potentially violate Canadian law.
Thanks Sam for adding that information for the readers. Canadian law is definitely different from American law. For the Davis case we found FIRE weighed in to state that the First Amendment was violated. For the London PL case we haven't seen a claim that Canadian law was violated and do not claim that the law was violated. I do see that London PL's own policy document states that "Intellectual Freedom is guaranteed as a basic democratic right by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms". It seems that London PL is acknowledging that they expect to run their institution in accordance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and yet, as the article points out, London PL potentially violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by seemingly acting with prior restraint when declining to rent the space for the lecture by the SAFS. I don't see any policy from London PL that says they expect to operate their rentals differently than the rest of their institution so I would expect their mentioned policy to apply to room rentals as well. If not, as the article discusses, it would be important to be transparent and clear about how they applied this policy in the Williams case. https://www.lpl.ca/sites/default/files/2021-12/M01%20Intellectual%20Freedom%20October%202021.pdf
Uh, you explicitly claimed that Canadian law was potentially violated: "In these cases, we see (respectively) potential violations of the First Amendment, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (viz. provisions for the freedom of expression)..."
You repeated this claim in your comment to me:
"London PL potentially violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by seemingly acting with prior restraint when declining to rent the space for the lecture by the SAFS."
This is where I think you have it wrong. Prior restraint is not a concept in the Charter (and I don't think it applies to libraries generally), but more importantly, unlike the US Constitution, the Charter is not absolute. Section 1 of the Charter is the "reasonable limits" clause, which allows for departure from the rights specified in the charter. Even acknowledging an intention to run the library according to the Charter, "according to the Charter" includes an interpretation of section 1. And they are certainly not *bound* by the charter (because a rental is not a booking - an important distinction the article doesn't address), so *at most* there is a potential difference of interpretation around section 1, but no potential violation of Canadian law. IANAL but that's how I read it.
Thanks Sam. I agree with your observations. I hadn't actually realized when the article was written that by writing "potential violations of..Charter.." it (unintentionally) pointed to a potential violation of Canadian law. After your comment, I read some more and realized the Charter is part of the Constitution which IS a set of laws. That's when I realized what appeared to be implied in the article. So, I wanted to point out that we did not find claims that Canadian law was violated and we do not claim it was violated. There is a significant and important gap between saying something "is violated" and something "is potentially violated". Additionally, I do not think prior restraint is part of the Charter, I was referring to it in light of it being a professional principle concept. I also agree that due to Section 1 of the Charter, and being aware of current judicial rulings that it is likely that due to Section 1 it would be unlikely for London PL to be found to be violating the law. I can't speak to the part about rentals vs bookings. I really appreciated the question and the information though. An important distinction to know about and learn about. Very interesting! (Jokingly, I will add that due to the seemingly weakness of the Charter protections due to Section 1, it may be reasonable to forgive anyone for not realizing that the Charter is part of Canadian law). More seriously, it may be important to think about the impact of judicial rulings in Canada that use Section 1 and appear to erode the protections of the Charter and how that may impact future rulings when/if there is a change in government. Even if the current political party retains their position after the next election, the people in the roles will change eventually or even if they remain the same, people change. Laws are there to provide stable protections. Of course, law does need to change with the times as well.
Thanks Amy. I suspect I'm sensitive to questions about the Charter as my (nearly finished) PhD dissertation is on exactly this issue (Charter rights, Canadian politics, and intellectual freedom), though obviously from the social justice side.
Actually, I don't think the Weld precedent is relevant: the court ruled against Weld because her event was a private one, and required attendees purchase tickets, so there was no "public character" involved. The SAFS event was free and open to the public, so would have had a public character. https://www.cba.org/Sections/Administrative-Law/Articles/2019/Court-rules
You're ignoring all the points in the piece you link to about renting. Renting rather than booking changes the nature of the relationship. There's no "public character" involved mainly because it's privately rented space, not space used by the public (the ticketing piece is secondary).
"the library’s decision was shaped by a private discretion in accordance with the terms of the rental agreement and not based on any legal requirements or statutory duties"
"The library had no duty to rent its space or enter in rental agreements with a particular individual"
"the library does not have a compulsory power over private individuals, especially since they can seek out other rental opportunities to screen a film" (incidentally, this point is why I think prior restraint is a silly argument to use against libraries).
Oh right, and in case I didn't make it clear - my point is that the London PL case is *also* a rental, not a booking, which makes Weld relevant. You don't make the distinction - which is a crucial one - in your article.
Regarding the article’s remark “there is a community educational aspect in both of these incidents (and in others) where norms are important, and public library administrators have an important role to play in working with other community leaders, in developing those norms”, I would highly recommend watching this 20 min lecture/10 min Q&A on the YouTube Channel Library 2.0, where Librarian Edward Remus presented a lecture titled “Library-organized events and progressive/conservative polarization. The case for liberal library programming”. He remarks in the conclusion that “Librarians have the skills and the institutional positions to curate these issues, viewpoints, and speakers in the form of public, library-initiated events.” In the Q&A, he also mentions concern that librarians may as a profession shirking opportunities to curate a wide range of discussions due to fear https://youtu.be/g6t7IC1uxtM?si=mP9p2UFmwWwP3T3R
Journalists Katie Herzog and Jesse Signal did investigative journalist regarding the Davis library incident and you can hear it on their Substack channel “Blocked & Reported”, “Episode 180: Quiet in the Stacks. A librarians in California takes a bold stand against free speech”. I found this reporting to cover more than I gleaned anywhere else. For example, they noted that this particular event was the fifth meeting of the Yolo Chapter of Moms for Liberty and the first one where the protestors came inside for the meeting and the first one that was censored. https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/episode-180-quiet-in-the-stacks?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
ICYMI, this seems to be a positive response to the incident in Davis, CA: https://twitter.com/TheFIREorg/status/1699799710075338954 I wonder if they are throwing the librarian in the video under the bus. My take was that he wasn't acting unilaterally and that his response had been collectively agreed to by the library admin. But who knows? It is good that the library acknowledges that something went wrong. Hopefully, they will adopt some of the recommendations proposed by the authors.
Above article references this article where the writer says many provocative and factually inaccurate statements appearing to do so in order to fabricate hate towards the event organizers and erode 1st amendment rights https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/article278881104.html
One of my first projects (1979) was a compilation of readings and an annotated bibliography, "The Role of Women in Librarianship: The Entry, Advancement and Struggle for Equalization in One Profession , 1876-1976."
Women couldn't speak at early ALA conferences and had men make their points.
https://www.amazon.com/Role-Women-Librarianship-1876-1976-Equalization/dp/0912700017
Interesting -- thanks for sharing that!
It's a hard lift for me to see how so much has changed. in 1979 we were advocating that women be given equal opportunity with our male colleagues for opportunities in library admin and on faculty.
But hopefully not because they were wearing these bridles(!).
One of the women was Mrs. Dewey.
John Dewey's wife? Interesting. His first wife I assume you mean?
Melvil's.
Just looked him up. All these years I thought it was John Dewey that came up with the cataloging system. I remember taking one philosophy class as an undergraduate in which we had to read a collection of 20th century essays which included one of John Dewey's and thinking he was a polymath.
Melvil seemed to have some "issues" - at least, according to Wikipedia.John Dewey's wives seemed to have fared better.
Thanks for writing this very timely article, Michael and Amy!
I'm starting to ponder even more how library neutrality, pluralism, and diversity of thought, all intersect to impact policies such as they ones used here (in not a good way), in both of those libraries. And how "The Certainty Trap" allied with misapplication of policies may lead institutions (or their administrators) to do questionable, inappropriate, or potentially illegal things. More and more, in fact, I think "The Certainty Trap" is one of the great professional hazards, in causing misjudgments and bad decisions. In these cases, surely, a bureaucratic dogmatism was at work.
Maybe there's a special place for "Perspective-taking" as an administrative competency or leadership skill--the ability to imagine how affected individuals or groups will understand a policy turned against them. The administrators in both of these situations obviously didn't believe they were allowed to make independent judgments in order to engage in "perspective-taking", so therefore applied a policy rigidly and inappropriately in a way that didn't adhere to larger legal and rights-based schemes which they should certainly be aware of or be trained in. How could professional development in "perspective-taking" and understanding the perils of "The Certainty Trap" be used to build on what FIRE and others suggested in these situations (and that you're recommending)?
I really like this question "How could professional development in "perspective-taking" and understanding the perils of "The Certainty Trap" be used to build on what FIRE and others suggested in these situations (and that you're recommending)?" . Professional development is a great way to help gain tools to deal with the always changing landscapes. The Certainty Trap is a concept that is not known to many and may be unlikely to be discovered given that many managers and asking people to focus on empathy, which Paul Bloom shows in his book "Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion" leads to a lack of being able to understand and empathize with those you are not focusing your empathy on. It also leads to irrational decisions. Of course historic intellectual freedom writers have pointed out that noone holds a monopoly on truth so how can anyone be 100% certain? https://paulbloom.net/#books
This is a good point about empathy and how it can become misdirected. We can well recall the ALA Task Force's proposal re: "Radical Empathy" as a core value. Just as "The Certainty Trap" is anti-empirical, and often leads to unfounded claims and bad decisions, "Radical Empathy" or inappropriate uses of empathy in applying policy can also lead to bad decisions. Not a surprise, that It's also the selective uses of empathy in protecting some groups or constituents from "harm" that are often present in our institutions.
I'd advocate for professional development (or LIS curricula with courses in administration or management including some training re: "The Certainty Trap"--or something similar--to prepare administrators to make better decisions. Possibly the same training could become part of professional development more generally, to avoid the ideologically-inflected workshops and trainings we see too much of now. Or at least offer an alternative option to those ideologically-influenced workshops.
Thank you Craig, excellent idea!
Obviously I hate this sort of censorship and the demonizing of legitimate disourse around gender and sex, but Moms for Liberty is hardly an advocate of open inquiry - they are rampantly censoring and chilling speech in Florida. Rufo and these conservative front organizations are openly attempting to follow the woke play book in taking over institutions in the name of fighting some moral enemy with the ultimate intent to freeze out all but trad con, religious views. They weaponize a legitmate issue in the same way the woke weaponized racism for power.
As much as I like this Substack--I read it with enthusiasm-- I think a tendency towards "qui non est mecum, contra me est" is there. So because we know that there is a semi-secret willingness of left-leaning librarians to shut discussion down, pretend that intelligent dissent doesn't exist, not review certain books, etc., some of us might presume that the "other side" is less apt to do that when, in fact, right now the spirit of censorship is running rampant--and equally selectively--through the ideological cesspools on the pop-culture left and pop-culture right. In other words, if you're genuinely open-minded and fair, the enemy of my enemy is also an a**hole.
I think some of the reason we cover more of the "illiberal left" here is that the "illiberal right" is covered extensively in the library literature.
That is definitely why I write about the "illiberal left". I get information regularly from my professional organization and in my daily life about the "illiberal right". The news from PEN America and Unite Against Book Bans have maybe not covered any news of censorship from the "illiberal left"? Why would that be?
I get the counter-points. My comment was just meant to be a warning that JUST BECAUSE the left-leaning library world IS illiberal--and they are, because they're doing the mental gymnastics that political conviction entails--doesn't mean that some counter-movement of "right-leaning" librarians is or would be better. They're probably going to be kooks, too.
I totally agree that the two illiberal factions are doing mental gyrations and gymnastics that uncannily resemble each other.
Definitely! That's why I try to aspire to "radical neutrality"!
I would be interested in a thorough analysis of the censorship attempts by the right. For example, attempts to limit something like "critical race theory" to being taught as one viewpoint among many is something I would support, if that is indeed going on somewhere. I would not support outright bans. The whole "don't say gay" thing was somewhat misrepresented in the media, from what I understand. We always welcome pieces if someone wants to delve into that-- hint hint.
I think there is another debate to be had about whether there is a difference in regard to teaching a text as opposed to having it available in the library. So definitely some ideas for more pieces! https://www.thefp.com/p/revolt-religious-parents-montgomery-county?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
There is a difference. I support the teaching of texts and having them available. Today's society is a great time to be a teacher and really use those skills to help people think, be critical and formulate their own beliefs/values. I am sure extremely hard and stressful though! Thanks to all the great teachers out there. I have appreciated learning from those teaching in the library world.
I would love to see a counter movement of right leaning librarians - but with the same organizational constraints in administrative policy the current left leaning ones should be, but aren't constrained by.
Good points for sure! I definitely got that message from them. It's enjoyable to engage in the discussion so I replied some more.
Brian, the podcast I linked to above “Blocked & Reported Episode 180” discusses the public perception of Moms for Liberty and gives context about the local Yolo Chapter that sponsored the Davis event. The information shared was surprising and worth a listen IMO. If you access that podcast on the web instead of in the Substack app it offers a free 7 day trial so you can listen to that episode for free if interested.
I listen to Blocked and Reported religiously as a premium member and heard that episode. Of course I think these ideological librarians have lost their minds and should have known they were being set up to look stupid and childish. I am a huge critic of gender ideology having a detransitioning niece misserved by gender affirming care and medically transitioned as a minor while missing an opportunity to treat her actual issues while she had insurance to do so. But I also live in Florida and am a Director at our state library consortia and have seen that sadly the anti-wokeness crusades we get with DeSantis is just an effort of the same old religious fundamentalists to seize back the apparatus using the same infiltrate institutions tactics the woke used. Rufo has said so many times. My library consortia is now fielding a challenge instigated by Moms for Liberty to remove books and databases we fund for the colleges but by statute also make available for HS IB and honors students. Moms for Liberty is like Diversity, Equity and Inclusion - sneak an ideology in to a morally virtuous name and dare people to disagree without being tarred as against the virtue. I don't think I should have to.choose between the "transwomen are women" people and the "God hates gays" people as I appear to have to in Florida.
As an aside DeSantis just appointed the Moms for Liberty founder to head the state ethics board. If I can't trust the Kendis of academia to keep their ideology out of state policy, I can't trust evangelical Christian activists to do so even more. Even Kendi doesn't think the creator of the universe cam and should punish unbelievers forever. https://apnews.com/article/florida-ethics-commission-moms-for-liberty-descovich-d797cf6797333c31b682ad3fd94b2bce#:~:text=(AP)%20%E2%80%94%20Republican%20Gov.,Commission%20on%20Ethics%20on%20Wednesday.
Important points for sure Brian! The article made a point of saying “that this analysis is not concerned with the substance of the claims of the respective speakers” as it’s about defending intellectual freedom for all. When one sees it taken away from a group, that’s a critical time to speak up and reassert that intellectual freedom is important and should be protected. Your points make me think of what Ed Remus said in the below YouTube video about librarians having the skills and institutional positions to curate these public discussions where there are many varied widely held views on controversial topics. I would suspect if a librarian had helped organize a talk on the issue in Yolo County that they would have used their skills to curate a talk that didn’t have Moms for Liberty as part of the program. Maybe this would have satisfied the informational needs of the local Moms for Liberty Chapter leader who scheduled this talk and then maybe all of this would have been avoided. It sounds from the report on Blocked and Reported that the Chapter leader has been ostracized by her community and targeted based on her viewpoint and she turned to Moms for Liberty as she heard of them and saw they would stand up for her desire to explore gender ideology and engage the public in a discussion of gender ideology. I think it’s important to note that likely most members of these types of groups are not radicals but are politically homeless and looking for someone who will engage on the topics at hand. If these mostly middle-of-the-road view-type political people had access to public forums that weren’t polarized I would suspect that groups like Moms for Liberty would see a large decrease in engagement. https://youtu.be/g6t7IC1uxtM?si=jKsDU_GeLx3Q1aZV
I am sort of making a broader point that it is very hard to know where to turn to put a stop to this censorious and empirically dubious critical social justice madness when the face of the only people taking steps to do anything about it are equally compromised in both their orientation to free expression/thought and their desire to seize the apparatus of institutions to push an ideology. And living in Florida and being the position I am in in the library/academic world here I feel like I am caught in a vice between too crazy axe-griding poles and the people who best articulate the problems of critical social justice and the capture of academia are slowly making the mistake of not seeing DeSantis and his cronies like Rufo, Corcoran, and Jason Spier doing the "correcting" here in Florida for what they are. I am feeling like I need to run for Governor myself since literally nobody seems to be able to get this right. I work with librarians at the 40 public Florida institutions every day, including New College, and I can tell you that I know many that find this social justice stuff overboard, but no way are they going to stand up to it as long as the only counter voice they hear is people saying gay marriage was a mistake and that the loss of Christianity is destroying society or, worse, people screaming about groomers. Obviously I think Moms for Liberty should have a platform anywhere and I hate being put in a position where they seem like the sane reasonable ones as I know that they have been and will be ever more captured by ideologues just as similar groups on the left have been.
That sounds extremely difficult. I can't imagine working and living in that environment. I bet you have gained a lot of deep insight being involved with this huge change in your state.
There was an interesting discussion in Blocked and Reported's Episode 178 giving some background on Rufo's recent work in Florida. I appreciate the humour those podcasters use to address serious issues. https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/episode-178-if-youre-not-a-fan-of?r=1mq6c5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Herzog pegged Rufo perfectly years ago. I am not sure what people are missing here - he has repeatedly and openly said he admires the tactical acumen of critical social justice activists and wants conservatives to use the same tactics to silence and destroy opposition. In Florida, he just fired a librarian at New College named Helene Gold simply because her CV has some critical librarianship stuff in it. Now I think that stuff is nonsense, but if you claim you don't think progressives should have political litmus tests for hiring, how can you turn around and do that. You just simply don't let the critical theory people have access to administrative policy and get them used to the idea that their ideas aren't going to be allowed to shout people down, but don't fire them for merely believing certain things. Rufo would be rightly incensed if we fired Southern Baptist faculty merely on the possibility they might teach creationist nonsense - hell, he would defend their right to do so! We have all seen "racism" concept creeped into applying to anything a person wants to ban and it is clear the political activist anti-woke just label as "critical theory" anything they want to ban. I don't think the answer to woke capture of institutions is to fire them all - it is to keep the administrative apparatus of the institutions separate from the curriculum and institute a few simple policies preventing the use of political litmus tests in hiring and protections for speech and viewpoint diversity. As soon as we say as certain line of inquiry is off limits, be it ones accused of being racist or critical theory, soon enough anything you want to ban because it is unkind to your ideology will be lumped into that category.
Brian, I agree with you, how difficult it is to find some kind of well-reasoned way to preserve academic freedom but not allow Critical Social Justice activism to run amok in institutions. That's why I think the AFA (Academic Freedom Alliance) is mostly getting it right in its statements about current politics affecting academic freedom in your state. I'm seeing some of the same tendencies (though not to to same degree) here in OH. Agree as well about Rufo and the particular kind of activism he's bringing to bear there (and elsewhere, wherever he can). I think
Rufo's recent book gives the blueprint for what he wants to do and he's very clear about it but there's just no real nuance with him. I think that Yascha Mounk's forthcoming book on the same general topic of preserving liberalism and academic freedom promises a much better approach in the midst of all this polarization.
Thanks for the book idea! I will put Yascha Mounk's "The Identity Trap: A story of ideas and power in our time" on my reading list. https://www.yaschamounk.com/
A lawyer representing the Lake County School Board, apparently at the behest of Moms for Liberty, just requested my state mandated library consortium - Florida Virtual Campus - release our database license terms to their office, as they appear to be taking exception with some GVRL reference titles and databases that we fund for the FCS and SUS that we also, by statute, must make available to high school honors and IB students. See if you can guess which ones:
https://flvc.libguides.com/az.php
Scared the crap out of one of my staff as they tried to scare her into handing them over going outside of proper sunshine request channels. So these are the people who claim to be fighting for viewpoint diversity and against censorship. As long as Republicans and their activists act like this, I can't do anything but vote for Democrats, as much as I wish they would come to their senses. I obviously find most of the so-called research in these databases heavy on DEI nonsense dubious since those fields are completely captured by activists and have only one viewpoint they will publish. But it doesn't have to be that way and I don't want to silence whole fields of inquiry, especially ones that done right have the potential to illuminate important pieces of problems we need to solve.
I'm not going to bother weighing in on the political aspects here. You all know my position on this stuff. However, I have to point out that the London Public Library event, according to this CBC news article (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/how-woke-won-author-london-library-refusal-1.6846015), was not a library-space booking, but a rental. An Ontario court ruled in the case of Weld v. Ottawa Public Library that when *renting* space, a library is not acting according to the Public Libraries Act, and can therefore refuse to rent on whatever grounds it wants. Indeed, *renting* space is itself an abrogation of the provision of *public* space, so the library is not acting in a public capacity at all. Whatever else is going on, London PL did not even potentially violate Canadian law.
Thanks Sam for adding that information for the readers. Canadian law is definitely different from American law. For the Davis case we found FIRE weighed in to state that the First Amendment was violated. For the London PL case we haven't seen a claim that Canadian law was violated and do not claim that the law was violated. I do see that London PL's own policy document states that "Intellectual Freedom is guaranteed as a basic democratic right by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms". It seems that London PL is acknowledging that they expect to run their institution in accordance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and yet, as the article points out, London PL potentially violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by seemingly acting with prior restraint when declining to rent the space for the lecture by the SAFS. I don't see any policy from London PL that says they expect to operate their rentals differently than the rest of their institution so I would expect their mentioned policy to apply to room rentals as well. If not, as the article discusses, it would be important to be transparent and clear about how they applied this policy in the Williams case. https://www.lpl.ca/sites/default/files/2021-12/M01%20Intellectual%20Freedom%20October%202021.pdf
Uh, you explicitly claimed that Canadian law was potentially violated: "In these cases, we see (respectively) potential violations of the First Amendment, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (viz. provisions for the freedom of expression)..."
You repeated this claim in your comment to me:
"London PL potentially violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by seemingly acting with prior restraint when declining to rent the space for the lecture by the SAFS."
This is where I think you have it wrong. Prior restraint is not a concept in the Charter (and I don't think it applies to libraries generally), but more importantly, unlike the US Constitution, the Charter is not absolute. Section 1 of the Charter is the "reasonable limits" clause, which allows for departure from the rights specified in the charter. Even acknowledging an intention to run the library according to the Charter, "according to the Charter" includes an interpretation of section 1. And they are certainly not *bound* by the charter (because a rental is not a booking - an important distinction the article doesn't address), so *at most* there is a potential difference of interpretation around section 1, but no potential violation of Canadian law. IANAL but that's how I read it.
Thanks Sam. I agree with your observations. I hadn't actually realized when the article was written that by writing "potential violations of..Charter.." it (unintentionally) pointed to a potential violation of Canadian law. After your comment, I read some more and realized the Charter is part of the Constitution which IS a set of laws. That's when I realized what appeared to be implied in the article. So, I wanted to point out that we did not find claims that Canadian law was violated and we do not claim it was violated. There is a significant and important gap between saying something "is violated" and something "is potentially violated". Additionally, I do not think prior restraint is part of the Charter, I was referring to it in light of it being a professional principle concept. I also agree that due to Section 1 of the Charter, and being aware of current judicial rulings that it is likely that due to Section 1 it would be unlikely for London PL to be found to be violating the law. I can't speak to the part about rentals vs bookings. I really appreciated the question and the information though. An important distinction to know about and learn about. Very interesting! (Jokingly, I will add that due to the seemingly weakness of the Charter protections due to Section 1, it may be reasonable to forgive anyone for not realizing that the Charter is part of Canadian law). More seriously, it may be important to think about the impact of judicial rulings in Canada that use Section 1 and appear to erode the protections of the Charter and how that may impact future rulings when/if there is a change in government. Even if the current political party retains their position after the next election, the people in the roles will change eventually or even if they remain the same, people change. Laws are there to provide stable protections. Of course, law does need to change with the times as well.
Thanks Amy. I suspect I'm sensitive to questions about the Charter as my (nearly finished) PhD dissertation is on exactly this issue (Charter rights, Canadian politics, and intellectual freedom), though obviously from the social justice side.
Please note the article has been updated. Thanks!
Actually, I don't think the Weld precedent is relevant: the court ruled against Weld because her event was a private one, and required attendees purchase tickets, so there was no "public character" involved. The SAFS event was free and open to the public, so would have had a public character. https://www.cba.org/Sections/Administrative-Law/Articles/2019/Court-rules
You're ignoring all the points in the piece you link to about renting. Renting rather than booking changes the nature of the relationship. There's no "public character" involved mainly because it's privately rented space, not space used by the public (the ticketing piece is secondary).
"the library’s decision was shaped by a private discretion in accordance with the terms of the rental agreement and not based on any legal requirements or statutory duties"
"The library had no duty to rent its space or enter in rental agreements with a particular individual"
"the library does not have a compulsory power over private individuals, especially since they can seek out other rental opportunities to screen a film" (incidentally, this point is why I think prior restraint is a silly argument to use against libraries).
Oh right, and in case I didn't make it clear - my point is that the London PL case is *also* a rental, not a booking, which makes Weld relevant. You don't make the distinction - which is a crucial one - in your article.
Regarding the article’s remark “there is a community educational aspect in both of these incidents (and in others) where norms are important, and public library administrators have an important role to play in working with other community leaders, in developing those norms”, I would highly recommend watching this 20 min lecture/10 min Q&A on the YouTube Channel Library 2.0, where Librarian Edward Remus presented a lecture titled “Library-organized events and progressive/conservative polarization. The case for liberal library programming”. He remarks in the conclusion that “Librarians have the skills and the institutional positions to curate these issues, viewpoints, and speakers in the form of public, library-initiated events.” In the Q&A, he also mentions concern that librarians may as a profession shirking opportunities to curate a wide range of discussions due to fear https://youtu.be/g6t7IC1uxtM?si=mP9p2UFmwWwP3T3R
Journalists Katie Herzog and Jesse Signal did investigative journalist regarding the Davis library incident and you can hear it on their Substack channel “Blocked & Reported”, “Episode 180: Quiet in the Stacks. A librarians in California takes a bold stand against free speech”. I found this reporting to cover more than I gleaned anywhere else. For example, they noted that this particular event was the fifth meeting of the Yolo Chapter of Moms for Liberty and the first one where the protestors came inside for the meeting and the first one that was censored. https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/episode-180-quiet-in-the-stacks?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
ICYMI, this seems to be a positive response to the incident in Davis, CA: https://twitter.com/TheFIREorg/status/1699799710075338954 I wonder if they are throwing the librarian in the video under the bus. My take was that he wasn't acting unilaterally and that his response had been collectively agreed to by the library admin. But who knows? It is good that the library acknowledges that something went wrong. Hopefully, they will adopt some of the recommendations proposed by the authors.
Thanks for the update!
Thanks for the news -- that is a very positive response. I'll add the link to an update!
Article from September 25th on the August event: California Library Shuts Down Moms For Liberty Event Over Misgendering Trans Athletes
https://www.dailywire.com/news/california-library-shuts-down-moms-for-liberty-event-over-misgendering-trans-athletes
Above article references this article where the writer says many provocative and factually inaccurate statements appearing to do so in order to fabricate hate towards the event organizers and erode 1st amendment rights https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/article278881104.html