Judge temporarily blocks Trump administration from dismantling library
services agency
[May 03, 2025]
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge agreed to temporarily block the Trump
administration from taking any more steps to dismantle an agency that
funds and promotes libraries across the U.S.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled Thursday that plaintiffs who sued
to preserve the Institute of Museum and Library Services are likely to
show that the Republican administration doesn't have the legal authority
to unilaterally shutter the agency, which Congress created.
The American Library Association and the American Federation of State,
County and Municipal Employees filed a lawsuit last month to stop the
administration from gutting the institute after President Donald Trump
signed a March 14 executive order that refers to it and several other
federal agencies as “unnecessary.”
Keith Sonderling, the agency's newly appointed acting director,
subsequently placed many agency staff members on administrative leave,
sent termination notices to most of them, began canceling grants and
contracts and fired all members of the National Museum and Library
Services Board.
“These harms are neither speculative nor remediable,” Leon wrote.
The judge said he was issuing a “narrow” temporary restraining order
that preserves the status quo at the agency without granting all of the
relief that plaintiffs' attorneys were seeking. It bars the
administration from taking any more steps to dissolve the agency or its
operations, fire any staffers or cancel contracts while the lawsuit is
pending.
The institute has roughly 75 employees and issued more than $266 million
in grants last year.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys warn that closing the agency will force libraries
to end grant-funded programs, cut staff and possibly even close.
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President Donald Trump arrives at Tuscaloosa National Airport,
Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce
Ceneta)
“And even if Defendants 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,” they wrote in the
lawsuit spearheaded by the group Democracy Forward.
Government lawyers said Trump's executive order requires the
institute to reduce its work to only that which is required by
statute. They also argued that the district court doesn't have
jurisdiction over plaintiffs' claims.
“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,” they wrote.
Cindy Hohl, president of the American Library Association, said the
cut in funding is already impacting libraries across the country,
including in rural areas where libraries are setting up their summer
reading programs.
“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. Hohl added that the
grants are a minute percentage of the overall federal budget but
provide sizable funding for some facilities that will have to close.
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