On the eve of an April 30 motion hearing on the future of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, attorneys for the American Library Association and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees have responded to last week’s filing by the defendants in ALA v. Sonderling. The plaintiffs seek a preliminary injunction to a White House executive order that they say takes a “chain-saw approach to federal agencies chartered by Congress of which it does not approve,” IMLS among them. Since the “implementation of the decision to dismantle IMLS is already well along,” they write, the case is “ripe for review.”
ALA v. Sonderling—filed by the ALA and AFSCME against acting IMLS director Keith Sonderling, President Donald Trump, Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought, DOGE acting administrator Amy Gleason, and IMLS and DOGE themselves—is a matter of urgency, given that 85% of IMLS’s staff is on paid administrative leave and facing a May 4 reduction in force. District court judge Richard J. Leon of the District of Columbia is handling the case.
The response describes the actions of the defendants as “arbitrary and capricious” and “unconstitutional,” and it challenges the executive action’s hobbling of IMLS “to the point of preventing it from fulfilling its statutory mission” of awarding and disbursing federal grants to successful applicants. Attorneys for the plaintiffs write, “When Congress appropriates funds to an agency to use for a particular purpose, the statute requires the agency to make good-faith efforts to obligate and expend all funds for the purpose for which they were appropriated.” Congress appropriated $294,800,000 to IMLS through September 30, they write, but with grants canceled or delayed, “the President frustrates the will of Congress, leaving millions of dollars in limbo.”
Attorneys for the plaintiffs want the court to reject the defendants’ request for bond in the case as well, saying it would “merely impose a financial barrier to litigation for plaintiffs seeking to vindicate their statutory and constitutional rights.” The defendants have argued that “security” is desirable in the case, should IMLS wish to recover U.S. taxpayers’ dollars.
The ALA and AFSCME contend that their case addresses “violations of clear limits on executive power.” They argue that a preliminary injunction is in the public interest, not only because IMLS programs “provide essential and irreplaceable library services,” but because the public needs government agencies that “abide by the federal laws.”
Two urgent IMLS cases
Library advocates also are awaiting updates on Rhode Island v. Trump, a parallel lawsuit in support of IMLS filed by 21 states’ attorneys general in the District Court of Rhode Island. During the motion hearing on that case, judge John J. McConnell Jr. said he found it “frustrating” when attorneys for the defendants brought no evidence, while attorneys for the plaintiffs supplied illustrative examples for their concerns in the case.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs in ALA v. Sonderling appear ready to make similar points about evidence or the lack thereof in their motion hearing, citing “no factual dispute that IMLS has already take numerous actions to shutter IMLS.” They cite “uncontradicted evidence” about federal furloughs and terminated grants, plus sworn declarations from witnesses who are suffering “cognizable harm.”
Findings of irreparable harm are central to both ALA v. Sonderling and Rhode Island v. Trump, with plaintiffs’ attorneys arguing that the gutting of IMLS has a cascading effect, removing specialists from the agency and obliterating competitive grant programs on which librarians and patrons depend. Literacy programs, instructional technologies, staff training, and community services are on the chopping block. Attorneys for the defendants claim that any harm is not only “alleged” and “speculative,” but “economic,” and therefore capable of being resolved through monetary relief. But plaintiffs clarify that throwing money at the problem at a later date won’t remedy the grave injury compounding at this very moment.
Writing for the ALA and AFSCME, counsel explained that they “seek prospective declaratory and injunctive relief; they do not seek money damages” and “the record here shows that the harm is the loss of services and jobs that are needed now, not years from now.” They add: “These injuries are far from speculative; indeed, many are already occurring” within the agency, to ALA members, to patrons, and to unionized library workers.
In a declaration, ALA senior director of public policy and government relations Alan Inouye explained ALA members' loss of access to IMLS library professionals and ALA's own diversion of resources to help those affected by the incapacitation of the agency; he also listed five IMLS grants to the ALA that have been terminated and three more canceled grants to which ALA is a subcontractor. AFSCME, for its part, is involved in the case not because it receives IMLS funding, but because it relies on IMLS data for collective bargaining. “Undermining a union’s ability to negotiate on behalf of its library workers strikes at the core business of a union,” attorneys for the plaintiffs write.
Meanwhile, grassroots awareness of IMLS’s predicament is growing. Political action committee MoveOn.org is currently circulating a petition created by OverDrive digital content librarian Sarah Filiberto, “Tell Trump and the GOP: Do Not Defund Our Museums and Libraries,” which has collected more than 33,000 signatures.
