The president of the American Library Association (ALA) has doubled down on her Marxist views, over which Republican lawmakers are urging libraries in their state to withdraw from the national federation.
Emily Drabinski, a 48-year-old self-proclaimed “Marxist lesbian,” was elected to lead the ALA in July. She assumed her post at the Chicago-headquartered organization at a time when librarians and libraries face increasing criticism for their radical sex and gender activism, such as recommending LGBT-themed books for children and organizing events for drag performers to read stories to children.
The ongoing backlash, which so far has caused at least one state ALA chapter to quit, was triggered by a Twitter post Ms. Drabinski made months before officially taking office as ALA president.
“I just cannot believe that a Marxist lesbian who believes that collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world is the president-elect of [ALA],” she wrote in an April 2022 post. “I am so excited for what we will do together. Solidarity! And my mom is SO PROUD. I love you mom.”
“I was excited to highlight and celebrate two aspects of my identity that are really important to me, and are often under a lot of scrutiny,” she told the outlet.
Montana Chapter Cut Ties
In July, Montana State Library Commission became the first state ALA chapter to sever ties with Chicago. During a public comment period before the commission vote, several parental rights activists and conservative librarians spoke in support of the separation, citing concerns over the national leadership’s desire to “inject the library into the vanguard of the culture wars.”“[ALA] receives over $210 millions in public funds, yet uses these funds to undermine truth and natural law—the very foundations of Western civilization,” said David Ingram, a board trustee at ImagineIF library. “Current examples of the organizational mindset include the induction of a self-proclaimed Marxist as president, who supports sexually exposing children, union-led political strife, socialist politicians, and pushes explicit and far-left material.”
To illustrate his point, Mr. Ingram pointed to two papers written by Ms. Drabinski that are widely read by progressive librarians across the nation.
Titled “Teaching the Radical Catalog” and “Queering the Catalog: Queer Theory and the Politics of Correction,” these papers discuss how the traditional ways of organizing information in a library—such as the classification structures used by the Library of Congress—are supposedly rooted in white supremacy, colonialism, or other systems of oppression. They also explore how existing systems can be “corrected” from a queer or decolonial perspective, with the goal to foster a generation of librarians who integrate social activism into their work.
“She has been said to believe that collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world. I fear her definition of ‘better,’” Mr. Ingram added.
Commissioner Brian Rossmann, a professor at the Montana State University Library, cast the sole opposing vote, stressing that ALA’s one-year presidency itself is more or less a “ceremonial role,” and that ALA’s policies and agenda are set by its executive director and 100-member executive board. He also argued that maintaining a voice at the ALA table comes with “a great deal of benefits” for Montana’s libraries.
“ALA itself is certainly not a Marxist organization,” Mr. Rossmann said. “I think this is rather a drastic response to one individual’s politics.”
In addition to Montana, library organizations of Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Wyoming have been called by their lawmakers to distance themselves from the ALA over Ms. Drabinski’s Marxism, as well as the national group’s stance on issues like parent-led removal of sexually explicit LGBT-themed books.
