The “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) ideology that has captured professors and administrators at most American universities has generated considerable discussion. But relatively untouched is the embrace of DEI by college and university librarians—and its implications. DEI ideologues’ quiet infiltration of university libraries distorts the literature that faculty and students read. This subtle and slow-acting influence is likely significant, though not immediately apparent. Understanding better what librarians’ ideological commitments mean and how they further the broad DEI agenda is important.
A professional association with some 50,000 members, many of them university librarians, the American Library Association (ALA) proclaims its support for DEI thusly:
Libraries are essential to democracy and self-government, to personal development and social progress, and to every individual’s inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To that end, libraries and library workers should embrace equity, diversity, and inclusion in everything that they do.
The ALA offers functionally oriented divisions and workshops for its members. Three of the workshops focus specifically on publications by African-Americans, LGBTQ+ persons, and sustainability topics.
[RELATED: Going Woke Isn’t Hard When You’ve Got a Library Card]
My sampling of dozens of major private and public college and university libraries revealed that virtually all of them have dedicated DEI or DEIA—“A” for “accessibility,” a Biden administration extension of DEI to disabled persons—functions similar to those extolled by the ALA. University libraries across America proclaim their embrace of DEI and often assign staff librarians to push DEI in explicitly identified positions. Libraries, like administrations, hire ideologically aligned personnel, especially “persons of color” and LGBTQ+ personnel, to fill these positions. A trustee of one of the few colleges whose library does not publicly declare allegiance to DEI recently told me that her librarians still do so privately in opposition to trustees’ guidance.
DEI-aligned personnel in school libraries acquire their politically acceptable books and journals, gradually shifting the range of perspectives to which students and faculty have ready access. Librarians have been active supporters of the insertion of seditious publications into libraries, including even elementary school libraries, and fought defensive measures, claiming that such material deserves “free speech” protections. This includes pushing destructive gender ideologies on young children.
Perhaps there is no better evidence of the problem than this statement on the website of Syracuse University’s library:
We also recognize that systemic inequities are embedded within libraries, universities and throughout our society, resulting in significant harm to our most vulnerable, marginalized and oppressed populations. We acknowledge that our institution is built upon the ancestral lands of the Onondaga Nation and recognize the history of genocide and forced removal of indigenous populations from their territories. Community and societal injustices must not be ignored, and we must confront and dismantle systems of oppression, such as white supremacy, wherever they exist, including at Syracuse University. The Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility Guide and the Guide to Resources for Racial Justice are just two examples of resources available to us and our community to begin this work.
Libraries’ DEI agenda is aided commercially by ProQuest, a firm that provides some 450,000 e-books to libraries on a subscription basis. ProQuest proclaims its commitment to DEI on its website:
Libraries have a unique platform to support university-wide diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. ProQuest believes in supporting every voice and understands the challenges libraries face in growing DEI collections. Let ProQuest help you meet the needs of your institution by ensuring the representation of diverse users and reflecting every voice, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability, age or belief.
[RELATED: Harvard Must Defend Its Libraries]
Political activism within libraries, along with its immediate and long-term implications, means that university reform efforts must also address libraries—but in ways that differ from those aimed at faculty intolerance and DEI administrative bureaucracies.
First, reformers should research libraries’ acquisition policies and identify what they actually procure and offer to their communities, including special or perceived remedial efforts to procure “diverse” works. They should monitor the organization and recruitment of library staff and root out DEI positions in name and function, recognizing that some such positions are camouflaged with innocuous-sounding titles. And they should ensure that all relevant operational procedures and events are ideologically neutral in their totality.
These reform activities should, in different ways, be both easier and more difficult to achieve than other educational reform efforts. The greatest challenge appears to be identifying the actual effects of library policies. New acquisitions are sometimes reported in aggregate numbers, but details of subjects of acquisitions, selection criteria, and books and journals foregone are not usually reported. Hence, there is a transparency problem. More positively, most librarians are not tenured faculty, meaning they can be reassigned or terminated more easily than professors, and the work of most librarians cannot be justified under routine claims of “academic freedom.”
But library science schools continue to produce DEI-enamored new librarians, like other woke university departments, meaning libraries are a huge reform challenge—and imperative.
Follow John A. Gentry on X.
