Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Administration From Dismantling Library Services Agency

Trump ended funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services in a March 14 executive order.

People work at desks in the Rose Main Reading Room at the New York Public Library in New York City on Oct. 5, 2016. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

A federal judge has tentatively prohibited the Trump administration from ending an agency supporting libraries across the United States.

Richard Leon, a senior judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ruled on May 1 that the administration could not terminate funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

“Plaintiffs have established that the grant terminations, loss of access to IMLS expertise and services, and loss of access to IMLS data have forced libraries to end programs midstream, fire employees and, in some cases, completely shutter,” he wrote in his decision. “These are not merely economic harms.”

President Donald Trump ended funding for the institute in a March 14 executive order aimed at “the reduction in the elements of the Federal bureaucracy that the President has determined are unnecessary.” This is part of the effort by the Department of Government Efficiency to flag waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.

Most of the 75-person staff at IMLS were let go, and contracts and grants were terminated by Keith Sonderling, the acting director of the agency, who also serves as the deputy secretary of labor. Leon said these steps cannot continue to be taken while the legal case is pending.

“These harms are neither speculative nor remediable,” the judge wrote.

The plaintiffs—the American Library Association and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor—wrote that “even if [the administration] possessed constitutional or statutory authority to eviscerate IMLS, they have provided no reasoned explanation for doing so, ignored strong reliance interests, and failed to consider more reasonable alternatives.”

In response, the Trump administration wrote that the “plaintiffs’ requested injunctive relief would effectively disable several federal agencies, as well as the president himself, from implementing the president’s priorities consistent with their legal authorities.”

American Library Association President Cindy Hohl said that recipients of support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services have to look outside Washington for assistance.

“Many libraries that already have contracts with performers and educators, they’re having to find other ways to be able to pay for their assistance with programs,” she said.

IMLS allocated grants worth more than $266 million last year.

In addition to the institute, the March 14 executive order also affected the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the Minority Business Development Agency, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the Smithsonian Institution’s Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.

Lawsuits have been filed to reverse the closures at the U.S. Agency for Global Media and other agencies. The cases are ongoing.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.