3 Ways to Stand Up for Free Speech and Libraries
April 4, 2025
Authors Guild Condemns Attacks on the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment of the Humanities
April 2, 2025
The Authors Guild stands in firm opposition to the Trump administration’s recent actions against America’s libraries and humanities research. A March 14 executive order called for eliminating “the non-statutory components and functions” of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and this week the agency’s entire staff of 75 was placed on administrative leave.
Not only does the executive branch of government lack the constitutional authority to cut these Congressionally created and funded institutions, but these actions represent an unprecedented assault on our nation’s commitment to education, research, knowledge, and public access to information.
The IMLS is an independent federal agency that serves as the primary source of federal support for libraries and museums nationwide. With a budget representing less than 0.003 percent of federal spending, the IMLS supports 125,000 public, school, academic, and special libraries across all 50 states and territories through essential grants and programs.
The IMLS administers critical funding that helps libraries maintain collections, provide technology access, support staff training, and develop community programs. Its Grants to States program alone delivers approximately $160 million annually to state library agencies—funding that constitutes between one-third to one-half of their total budgets. This federal investment enables libraries in underserved and rural communities to provide essential services they could not otherwise afford.
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is facing similarly devastating cuts. DOGE has recommended reducing NEH staff by 70–80 percent and potentially canceling all grants made during the Biden administration that haven’t been fully distributed. With an annual budget of $211 million—a mere fraction of federal spending—the NEH provides critical support for humanities projects nationwide and directs 40 percent of its program funds to state humanities councils, many of which rely entirely on this funding for their continued operation.
The NEH’s grants represent tangible cultural preservation happening in communities across America. Its recent $26.6 million in grants supported crucial projects like preserving oral histories of the devastating Lahaina wildfire in Hawaii, digitizing Louis Armstrong’s historical archives in Queens, and funding language learning at the Yiddish Book Center in Massachusetts. Beyond these direct grants, the NEH provides the financial backbone for state humanities councils nationwide, with 40 percent of its program funds channeled directly to these local organizations. By targeting the NEH, the administration isn’t merely cutting a budget line—it’s silencing the voices of disaster survivors, erasing access to irreplaceable cultural heritage, and dismantling the infrastructure that ensures America’s diverse stories can be told, preserved, and understood by future generations.
These attacks are not about reducing government spending. It’s about limiting Americans’ access to information and diverse perspectives—a direct contradiction of the principles upon which our democratic society was founded.
The First Freedom Under Fire
Since the Library Bill of Rights was established in 1939—specifically in response to book burnings in Nazi Germany—American libraries have stood as bulwarks against censorship and champions of intellectual freedom. When an administration seeks to defund and dismantle these institutions, it reveals a fundamental disrespect for the principles of free inquiry that underpin our democracy.
The vague directive in the executive order to promote “patriotism” and “core values” raises alarming questions: Who decides which perspectives are sufficiently patriotic? What happens to materials that present alternative viewpoints on American history?
Today, as books are being removed from shelves under vague guidelines about “appropriateness” and “patriotism,” we face a chilling parallel to the very authoritarianism this document was created to resist.
LIBRARY BILL OF RIGHTS
The Library Bill of Rights is a vital tool for protecting intellectual freedom and ensuring that libraries remain vital centers for information and learning. The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.
- Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background or views of those contributing to their creation.
- Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
- Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
- Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
- A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
- Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.
- All people, regardless of origin, age, background, or views, possess a right to privacy and confidentiality in their library use.
What Is at Stake
Rural and underserved communities will be hit hardest by these cuts. While major urban libraries may survive through local funding, smaller communities depend heavily on federal support through the IMLS. This action widens the information gap between wealthy and disadvantaged Americans.
Dismantling library and humanities funding for programs meant to enlighten us, while simultaneously promoting book bans across the country is un-American at the extreme. It is intended to promote ignorance and echoes the very authoritarianism our nation has historically stood against and that our Library Bill of Rights was specifically designed to combat.
This James Madison quotation is engraved in the marble on the front of the Library of Congress’ Madison building:
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
The administration’s dismantling of the IMLS and NEH are direct attacks on knowledge and are part of a broader scheme, that also includes attacks on higher education and the destruction of the Department of Education, meant to disarm the people and render us powerless.
Call to Congress, Authors, and Readers
The Authors Guild calls on Congress to reassert its authority and protect the IMLS, which was reauthorized with bipartisan support in 2018—legislation that President Trump himself signed. Similarly, we urge Congress to preserve the National Endowment for the Humanities, which has enjoyed longstanding bipartisan support for its vital work in supporting cultural and educational institutions across America. We urge all who value freedom of thought to contact their representatives and demand the protection of these essential institutions.
To our fellow writers, we ask that you use your platforms to speak out against this assault on our shared cultural inheritance. Libraries, museums, humanities organizations, and institutions of higher learning have always been our strongest allies in creating an informed and thoughtful society.
In times of political polarization, libraries remain one of the few truly democratic spaces where all Americans can access knowledge without judgment or restriction. Meanwhile, the NEH ensures that our cultural heritage and humanities scholarship remain accessible to all Americans regardless of geography or economic status. The preservation of these institutions is not a partisan issue but a matter of protecting our fundamental rights as members of a free society.