The Political Librarian Webinars: Weaponized Politics and Dismantled Policies
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- The Political Librarian Webinar: Weaponized Politics and Dismantled Policies
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- The Political Librarian Webinar: Weaponized Politics and Dismantled Policies
Libraries, archives, and cultural institutions are facing an unprecedented wave of ideological, legal, and policy attacks. Join The Political Librarian for an "In Conversation" webinar series that brings together some of the authors featured in the Political Librarian Special Issue to examine how Executive Orders and political narratives are reshaping DEI, public memory, free speech, labor, and professional ethics in the GLAM fields.
RSVP once now to receive access to all event links and reminders.
Schedule of Events
January 19 at 1pm EST
Series Intro Conversation, "Weaponized Politics and Dismantled Policies"
Libraries are facing the most coordinated political attack on equity and inclusion in modern professional history. Executive orders are reshaping public policy, forcing institutions to justify diversity work and attempting to redefine whose stories deserve to be told. This opening session launches “The Political Librarian” Special Issue and brings together its co-editors, Dr. Nicole A. Cooke and Dr. Aisha M. Johnson. They will discuss why this issue is relevant now, how they developed it, and what they believe the library sector must address in the months ahead.
Dr. Cooke is the Augusta Baker Endowed Chair and Professor at the University of South Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science. Dr. Johnson is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Outreach at the Georgia Institute of Technology Library.
Together, they curated a collection that shows how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives are being dismantled at the federal, state, and local levels through coordinated executive action and Trump Administration orders that eliminate DEI language and structures, reshape funding priorities, and push cultural institutions toward ideological compliance.
Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/events/1706073977431682
YouTube Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8VnMyc3NXw
January 26 at 1pm EST
What Is Lost in “Restoring Truth and Sanity”
Libraries and memory institutions are being ordered to rewrite history. Over a dozen federal executive orders issued since Trump’s second inauguration have targeted DEI programs, outlawed inclusive language, and pushed information professionals to remove or alter historical records.
In this powerful conversation, Evan Allgood and Dr. Travis Wagner unpack what those directives mean for libraries, archives, and public memory, as well as what we stand to lose if we comply with them. Their article reveals how government action is pressuring memory workers to redact queer history, erase marginalized voices, and manipulate metadata at national cultural sites, including the Stonewall National Monument and the Smithsonian.
This session explores how federal policy is reshaping archival truth, outlines what disappearance looks like from the inside, highlights strategies to resist political distortion of historical records, and examines what queer archival practice teaches us about power and survival.
Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/events/895472873161142
YouTube Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VZrCZw3MrA
February 2 at 1pm EST
You Work for the Public; Your Thoughts Aren’t Sacred
Too often, anti‑DEI arguments claim that librarians and public workers deserve a special sphere of protected “thought privacy,” where belief can be separated from professional obligation, and that equity efforts violate it. Dr. John Mack Freeman, Assistant Dean for Interdisciplinary Initiatives and Director of the Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons at the Georgia Tech Library, challenges this premise head‑on in his new Political Librarian article, arguing that librarians are public servants whose responsibilities extend beyond personal ideology.
Drawing on legal history, workplace ethics, and years of professional experience, Freeman rejects the idea that DEI initiatives are coercive or censorious. Instead, he shows how accountability, transparency, and equitable labor practices are central to public trust and public funding. This session will help attendees understand how “neutrality” and intellectual distance arguments are being used as political tools, and what a professional, ethical, and democratic response looks like.
Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/events/830429136706389 - Updated Link 2/2
YouTube Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIWkbsnFaio - Updated Link 2/2
February 9 at 1pm EST
Land of the Free, Home of the Brave
Across the country, libraries are being told that diversity and free speech cannot coexist. Censors insist that protecting marginalized voices means silencing others. Legislators are crafting policies around that narrative. But what if the premise itself is wrong?
In this timely conversation, Dr. Sarah Beth Nelson and John William Nelson dismantle the false binary between free expression and equity. Drawing on law, pedagogy, and lived institutional experience, their work shows that libraries can expand both free speech and diversity by building intentional “brave spaces,”environments designed not to avoid conflict, but to navigate it honestly and constructively.
Sarah Beth Nelson brings academic and professional expertise as an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee School of Information Studies, where she studies storytelling, identity, and library education. John William Nelson brings legal and cultural context as an attorney at The Nelson Law Chambers LLC with experience supporting companies, individuals, and institutions navigating issues related to intellectual property, free speech, and constitutional rights.
For librarians facing book challenges, hostile boards, speech-based accusations, and community fracture, this webinar offers a framework rooted in law and practice, not slogans.
Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/events/721513311018415
YouTube Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NblA4vMdfAU
February 16 at 1pm EST
This session will examine how Executive Orders target DEI structures, undermines public knowledge infrastructures, and normalizes authoritarian messaging through policy. Dr. Mehra connects these developments to historic precedent, including troubling parallels to Weimar-era political rhetoric and democratic erosion. This stern warning is for librarians, trustees, faculty, and students who want to understand the deeper ideological forces shaping current attacks on library services and who want tools to resist them.
Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/events/949183984939349
YouTube Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22z31Chxtak
February 23 at 1pm EST
Goliath Lost
Federal directives are reshaping cultural memory and demanding librarians participate in historical erasure. A new federal directive ordering cultural institutions to “restore truth and sanity” to American history sounds benign until you read the fine print. Beneath the language lies a sweeping attempt to erase stories of Indigenous survival, Black resistance, racial injustice, and dissent. What happens when the federal government instructs museums, libraries, and archives to remove evidence of oppression in the name of “unity”?
In “Goliath Lost,” librarian Teneka Williams examines the Executive Order to Restore Truth and Sanity to America’s museums and cultural institutions, arguing that it attempts to revise the nation’s historical record and eliminate dissenting perspectives. We will explore how these directives seek to silence Black and Indigenous histories, enforce political alignment in archival practice, and pressure library workers to remove or suppress materials that contradict sanctioned narratives. Williams’s analysis reveals the stakes for public history, community memory, and the professional ethics of librarianship.
Facebook Live: http://facebook.com/events/843098401818223
YouTube Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1shwjM1XX-4
March 2 at 1pm EST
What Could Have Been?: Surveying the Labor Impact of the 2025 Executive Orders on GLAM Workers
Federal Executive Orders didn’t just threaten ideas, they eliminated jobs, ended programs, and cut off careers. The cultural sector is now living with the quiet fallout: lost programs, abandoned collection work, stalled research, and careers cut short. But almost none of that loss is being documented. In their Political Librarian article, Raegan Stearns, Alphie Garcia, and Jina DuVernay document what was lost when federal funding collapsed, and GLAM workers found their projects defunded or dismantled.
Our featured speakers bring deep, diverse expertise across the GLAM landscape:
- Raegan C. Stearns is University Archivist at Alabama State University.
- Alphie Garcia is the Information Resources & Collection Management Librarian at the University of Hawai‘i – West O‘ahu.
This webinar will discuss the survey, the impetus of the creation at ALI, and the challenges of researching this as events were actively unfolding.
Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/events/1385075509937101
YouTube Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vISn5FsQfwY
These sessions offer evidence, language, strategy, and community for library leaders, advocates, and workers responding to the evolving national landscape. We invite attendees to explore the full Special Issue, share these insights across their networks, and join EveryLibrary Institute in defending the future of public access, equity, and intellectual freedom.
Visit www.ThePoliticalLibrarian.org to read the full Issue.
When
Where
Libraries, archives, and cultural institutions are facing an unprecedented wave of ideological, legal, and policy attacks. Join The Political Librarian for an "In Conversation" webinar series that brings together some of the authors featured in the Political Librarian Special Issue to examine how Executive Orders and political narratives are reshaping DEI, public memory, free speech, labor, and professional ethics in the GLAM fields.
RSVP once now to receive access to all event links and reminders.
Schedule of Events
January 19 at 1pm EST
Series Intro Conversation, "Weaponized Politics and Dismantled Policies"
Libraries are facing the most coordinated political attack on equity and inclusion in modern professional history. Executive orders are reshaping public policy, forcing institutions to justify diversity work and attempting to redefine whose stories deserve to be told. This opening session launches “The Political Librarian” Special Issue and brings together its co-editors, Dr. Nicole A. Cooke and Dr. Aisha M. Johnson. They will discuss why this issue is relevant now, how they developed it, and what they believe the library sector must address in the months ahead.
Dr. Cooke is the Augusta Baker Endowed Chair and Professor at the University of South Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science. Dr. Johnson is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Outreach at the Georgia Institute of Technology Library.
Together, they curated a collection that shows how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives are being dismantled at the federal, state, and local levels through coordinated executive action and Trump Administration orders that eliminate DEI language and structures, reshape funding priorities, and push cultural institutions toward ideological compliance.
Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/events/1706073977431682
YouTube Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8VnMyc3NXw
January 26 at 1pm EST
What Is Lost in “Restoring Truth and Sanity”
Libraries and memory institutions are being ordered to rewrite history. Over a dozen federal executive orders issued since Trump’s second inauguration have targeted DEI programs, outlawed inclusive language, and pushed information professionals to remove or alter historical records.
In this powerful conversation, Evan Allgood and Dr. Travis Wagner unpack what those directives mean for libraries, archives, and public memory, as well as what we stand to lose if we comply with them. Their article reveals how government action is pressuring memory workers to redact queer history, erase marginalized voices, and manipulate metadata at national cultural sites, including the Stonewall National Monument and the Smithsonian.
This session explores how federal policy is reshaping archival truth, outlines what disappearance looks like from the inside, highlights strategies to resist political distortion of historical records, and examines what queer archival practice teaches us about power and survival.
Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/events/895472873161142
YouTube Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VZrCZw3MrA
February 2 at 1pm EST
You Work for the Public; Your Thoughts Aren’t Sacred
Too often, anti‑DEI arguments claim that librarians and public workers deserve a special sphere of protected “thought privacy,” where belief can be separated from professional obligation, and that equity efforts violate it. Dr. John Mack Freeman, Assistant Dean for Interdisciplinary Initiatives and Director of the Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons at the Georgia Tech Library, challenges this premise head‑on in his new Political Librarian article, arguing that librarians are public servants whose responsibilities extend beyond personal ideology.
Drawing on legal history, workplace ethics, and years of professional experience, Freeman rejects the idea that DEI initiatives are coercive or censorious. Instead, he shows how accountability, transparency, and equitable labor practices are central to public trust and public funding. This session will help attendees understand how “neutrality” and intellectual distance arguments are being used as political tools, and what a professional, ethical, and democratic response looks like.
Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/events/830429136706389 - Updated Link 2/2
YouTube Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIWkbsnFaio - Updated Link 2/2
February 9 at 1pm EST
Land of the Free, Home of the Brave
Across the country, libraries are being told that diversity and free speech cannot coexist. Censors insist that protecting marginalized voices means silencing others. Legislators are crafting policies around that narrative. But what if the premise itself is wrong?
In this timely conversation, Dr. Sarah Beth Nelson and John William Nelson dismantle the false binary between free expression and equity. Drawing on law, pedagogy, and lived institutional experience, their work shows that libraries can expand both free speech and diversity by building intentional “brave spaces,”environments designed not to avoid conflict, but to navigate it honestly and constructively.
Sarah Beth Nelson brings academic and professional expertise as an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee School of Information Studies, where she studies storytelling, identity, and library education. John William Nelson brings legal and cultural context as an attorney at The Nelson Law Chambers LLC with experience supporting companies, individuals, and institutions navigating issues related to intellectual property, free speech, and constitutional rights.
For librarians facing book challenges, hostile boards, speech-based accusations, and community fracture, this webinar offers a framework rooted in law and practice, not slogans.
Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/events/721513311018415
YouTube Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NblA4vMdfAU
February 16 at 1pm EST
This session will examine how Executive Orders target DEI structures, undermines public knowledge infrastructures, and normalizes authoritarian messaging through policy. Dr. Mehra connects these developments to historic precedent, including troubling parallels to Weimar-era political rhetoric and democratic erosion. This stern warning is for librarians, trustees, faculty, and students who want to understand the deeper ideological forces shaping current attacks on library services and who want tools to resist them.
Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/events/949183984939349
YouTube Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22z31Chxtak
February 23 at 1pm EST
Goliath Lost
Federal directives are reshaping cultural memory and demanding librarians participate in historical erasure. A new federal directive ordering cultural institutions to “restore truth and sanity” to American history sounds benign until you read the fine print. Beneath the language lies a sweeping attempt to erase stories of Indigenous survival, Black resistance, racial injustice, and dissent. What happens when the federal government instructs museums, libraries, and archives to remove evidence of oppression in the name of “unity”?
In “Goliath Lost,” librarian Teneka Williams examines the Executive Order to Restore Truth and Sanity to America’s museums and cultural institutions, arguing that it attempts to revise the nation’s historical record and eliminate dissenting perspectives. We will explore how these directives seek to silence Black and Indigenous histories, enforce political alignment in archival practice, and pressure library workers to remove or suppress materials that contradict sanctioned narratives. Williams’s analysis reveals the stakes for public history, community memory, and the professional ethics of librarianship.
Facebook Live: http://facebook.com/events/843098401818223
YouTube Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1shwjM1XX-4
March 2 at 1pm EST
What Could Have Been?: Surveying the Labor Impact of the 2025 Executive Orders on GLAM Workers
Federal Executive Orders didn’t just threaten ideas, they eliminated jobs, ended programs, and cut off careers. The cultural sector is now living with the quiet fallout: lost programs, abandoned collection work, stalled research, and careers cut short. But almost none of that loss is being documented. In their Political Librarian article, Raegan Stearns, Alphie Garcia, and Jina DuVernay document what was lost when federal funding collapsed, and GLAM workers found their projects defunded or dismantled.
Our featured speakers bring deep, diverse expertise across the GLAM landscape:
- Raegan C. Stearns is University Archivist at Alabama State University.
- Alphie Garcia is the Information Resources & Collection Management Librarian at the University of Hawai‘i – West O‘ahu.
This webinar will discuss the survey, the impetus of the creation at ALI, and the challenges of researching this as events were actively unfolding.
Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/events/1385075509937101
YouTube Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vISn5FsQfwY
These sessions offer evidence, language, strategy, and community for library leaders, advocates, and workers responding to the evolving national landscape. We invite attendees to explore the full Special Issue, share these insights across their networks, and join EveryLibrary Institute in defending the future of public access, equity, and intellectual freedom.
Visit www.ThePoliticalLibrarian.org to read the full Issue.