by Jane Coleman at legalinsurrection.com
The ALA’s new president wants to build “collective power” and “queer the catalog.” Multiple states have withrawn from or are in the process of withdrawing from the ALA in protest of the deepening radicalism of the organization.
Emily Drabinski, the new “Marxist lesbian” president of the American Library Association (ALA), had just taken office last month when the backlash began.
One by one, states started to withdraw or consider withdrawing support for the organization. Conservative groups mobilized. Politicians called for an investigation into the ALA. A new competing “World Library Association” launched. By early August, 15 states had joined to fight against the ALA, part of an unprecedented counterattack against the oldest and largest library membership organization and the progressive policies it now stands for.
But while its president may be brand new, its policies are not. The ALA was captured by the left well before Drabinski’s arrival.
Years ago, Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom advised members to “re-frame” the messaging on gender ideology “as diverse materials and programming that are about
n, fairness, and protection of everybody’s right to see themselves … in the public library.”
And over the years, the ALA has been telling its gender ideology story to a younger and younger audience, through both its programming and the books it recommends.
The organization promotes “Drag Queen Story Hour” library programs for children as young as four on its website:
“Kids love it!” they insist. And if their parents don’t love it, then they are the problem. The ALA provides policies to protect librarians from censorship and resources “to help libraries defend Drag Queen Story Hour and other Pride-themed events and displays.”
The ALA’s website is itself an engine of radical advocacy, urging children aged 0-5 to “embrace alternative gender identities.” For 14-17-year-olds, the ALA celebrates books such as this one whose cover shows a trans teenager’s breast removal scars. And its Rainbow List promotes sexually perverse books for all ages: “from babies and children to tweens and teens.”
The problem of how to hide all this obscenity from parents (aka “book banners”) came up at the ALA’s June webinar, reports Haley Kennington, Research and Archive Director for the Daily Wire’s online film What is a Woman. At that online meeting, librarians were told not to label LGBTQ literature as such because “it makes it too easy for parents or community members to find.” Instead, they should use “dummy covers.”
Given the ALA’s long track record of promoting woke and gender ideology, you might think that Drabinski’s installment would be an unremarkable next step in the left’s long march through yet another institution.
But she has so openly aligned herself with the cultural Marxists that, this time, based on the negative attention she has drawn these past few weeks, the ALA may have overplayed its hand.
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