After ordering the effective dismantlement of the Institute of Museum and Library Companies (IMLS) final week, President Donald Trump has sworn in a brand new director for the company who has pledged to “restore concentrate on patriotism,” alarming advocacy teams who concern a discount of important cultural providers and restrictions on free expression.
Keith E. Sonderling, who was additionally sworn in as the USA Division of Labor’s Deputy Secretary, has assumed the function of appearing director of the IMLS, the company introduced Thursday, March 20.
In a press release, Sonderling mentioned he deliberate to uphold the Trump Administration’s imaginative and prescient to “protect our nation’s core values, promote American exceptionalism, and domesticate love of nation in future generations.”
Sonderling, a labor and employment lawyer with no recognized expertise in cultural establishments, replaces Cyndee Landrum, a seasoned official who labored in public libraries throughout the nation for 20 years and held the submit at IMLS since March 2024.
Created in 1996 by the Museum and Library Companies Act, the company awarded $266 million to establishments nationwide final yr. It as soon as provided quite a few museum grant applications, together with the American Latino Museum Internship and Fellowship Initiative, Museum Grants for African American Historical past and Tradition, and Native American and Native Hawaiian Museum Companies. The fates of these applications are unclear.
The IMLS has not but responded to a request for remark.
Elizabeth Larison, director of the Arts and Tradition Advocacy Program for the Nationwide Coalition Towards Censorship, an alliance of nonprofits advocating for First Modification rights, instructed Hyperallergic that Sonderling’s promise to advertise American exceptionalism inhibits freedom of expression — together with the liberty to criticize the federal government.
“It appears now that the IMLS will likely be placing training and tradition in service of nationalist propaganda, relatively than in service of the American folks,” Larison mentioned. “In consequence, we’re more likely to see federal funding dry up for libraries and museums presenting supplies that go towards the beliefs and priorities of the present president, stifling the free trade of concepts and cultural range within the US.”
Final week, Trump ordered the IMLS to get rid of all “capabilities and elements” besides these required by regulation, an identical tactic the president used this week to dismantle the Division of Schooling with out Congressional approval in an government order titled “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy.”
Sonderling’s dedication to using the IMLS to advertise “patriotism” is according to actions related to Trump’s plan for a “Golden Age in Arts and Tradition,” introduced on his social media platform Reality Social final month, which incorporates the elimination of drag exhibits on the Kennedy Heart for Performing Arts. Trump changed the middle’s board with allies final month and put in himself as chair, prompting artists to withdraw from upcoming programming.
Earlier this week, Trump ousted the National Endowment for the Arts’s (NEA) first Native American chairperson, Shelly C. Lowe, pending Senate affirmation of a Trump-appointed substitute. Later this month, a federal decide will hear the American Civil Liberties Union’s case against the NEA, which the civil rights group claims is violating First Modification rights by imposing Trump’s anti-trans mandate as a prerequisite for its grantmaking.
The transfer was met with swift condemnation from nationwide cultural organizations together with the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), the American Historic Affiliation (AHA), and the American Library Affiliation (ALA), all of which underscored the company’s vital funding contributions to museums and libraries throughout the nation.
“By eliminating the one federal company devoted to funding library providers, the Trump administration’s government order is reducing off on the knees probably the most beloved and trusted of American establishments and the employees and providers they provide,” the ALA mentioned in a statement.
The IMLS was one in all seven to be successfully gutted by the manager order, together with the USA Company for World Media (ensuing within the shuttering of state-funded worldwide broadcasting firm Voice of America), Woodrow Wilson Worldwide Heart for Students within the Smithsonian Establishment, and the Minority Enterprise Growth Company. The Trump administration gave the companies seven days to report their compliance to the Workplace of Administration and Funds, the entity behind the funding freeze memorandum that despatched chills all through the community of organizations that rely upon federal funding in January.
“This must be regarding for everybody within the US, no matter their political leanings,” Larison mentioned. “In a democracy, the function of libraries and museums is to serve the general public by advancing entry to info and tradition in all its eclectic kinds.”
