Fremont County Library Board votes to remove ALA references from local library system policies, other documents

(Dubois, WY) – The Fremont County Library Board voted 4-1 last week to remove all references to the American Library Association from Fremont County Library System bylaws, policies, handbooks, strategic plans, promotions, posters, and other documents. 

Library Board Member Marta Mossburg made the motion during a regular meeting Thursday, explaining that she drafted the proposal because the ALA’s “mission, priorities, and values contradict the U.S. Constitution, Wyoming State Statutes, and Fremont County community standards.”

She referred specifically to a recent Executive Order from U.S. President Donald Trump asking the Secretary of Education to “hold accountable” any accrediting agencies that require “institutions seeking accreditation to engage in unlawful discrimination in accreditation-related activity under the guise of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ initiatives.”

The ALA’s 2023 Standards for Accreditation of Master’s Programs in Library and Information Studies “infuse concepts of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion throughout,” according to the ALA website.

“The values of equity, diversity, inclusion, and social justice are referenced throughout the
Standards because of their importance when framing goals and objectives, designing curricula, selecting and retaining faculty and students, and allocating resources,” the standards state.

Mossburg said those “diversity mandates – which require (ALA-accredited) institutions to discriminate on the basis of skin color and gender – clearly violate the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College from 2023.”

“Unlike the ALA, we are required to uphold the U.S. Constitution and should not adopt policies and practices that disregard it,” she said. 

At the state level, Mossburg pointed to Wyoming statutes that “clearly state that every library bathroom shall be designated for use exclusively by biological males or exclusively by biological females” and that “the state and its political subdivisions shall not compel or require an employee to refer to another employee using that employee’s preferred pronoun.” 

The ALA, by contrast, promotes “unisex bathrooms,” the use of preferred pronouns, and “turning libraries into homeless shelters,” Mossburg said – “in fact, it won’t hold meetings in states like Wyoming that have so-called bathroom bills that limit patrons to using bathrooms that reflect their biological sex.”

Locally, Mossburg also pointed to the ALA’s support for “intellectual freedom for everyone, regardless of age,” which has “led to constant tension in the community regarding sexually graphic material in the young adult section.”

“(The ALA) advocates that no library should seek to determine which books are sexually explicit and leaves that determination solely to the court system,” she said. “It is against filtering computer systems for children, (and it) advocates against parental rights and for centralized control of libraries in the hands of so-called experts. …

“We should be accountable to the people of Fremont County – not a national organization who seeks to undermine parents and community members to implement its one-size-fits-all progressive goals.”

ALA training

Mossburg’s motion originally included an additional provision to “stop using any ALA training” within the FCLS, but she removed that phrase from her proposal after Board Member Perry Cook expressed concern that the move would limit access to educational resources for local library employees.

The ALA website offers “a huge number of” lessons in administration, leadership, advocacy, archives and records, management collection, and more, Cook pointed out.

By contrast, she said, organizations like the World Library Association – where Mossburg serves as a “team member” – provide library systems with policy guidance but don’t necessarily offer educational programming.

“It may be a good resource, (but) my feeling is … we should be looking at all sorts of resources,” Cook said. “What I expect us to do is to find places where we can get information on how to do collection management, or archives and records management. … Where can we go to give training to our employees, since we don’t have money for doing that? Where can we get good free training for them? Where can we get that kind of stuff?”

Board Member Karen Wetzel agreed that employees need education and training, but she said “it should be the right type of training,” from a group other than the ALA, which she described as “a partisan organization” that is run “almost like (a) dictatorship.”

“Everybody (that) has anything to do with the library … wants to follow exactly what the ALA says they should do,” Wetzel said.

FCLS Director Anita Marple pushed back on that assertion, however, noting that “the ALA is made up of individual librarians, and there isn’t a litmus test for membership – there is no oath you have to take.”

In fact, she said the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights and Freedom to Read Statement provide guidance for librarians to “keep libraries in general as places where you come in and there’s not a litmus test for your beliefs.”

“These (guidelines) keep us from getting political and developing bias, and that’s why we need them,” she said. “And I don’t think any particular configuration of a board for our library system should be deciding on whether or not we stick with these principles that are solid and have been tried and true for decades.” 

The FCLS policy manual currently “affirms” the ALA Bill of Rights “as a guiding, non-binding document in providing library services” – but it also notes that “final policy decisions are the responsibility of the FCLS Library Board of Directors.”

“We’re not saying that they’re telling us what to do,” Cook said. “We’re saying (we) like this document, therefore we’re putting it in our manual.”

Instead of removing all of the ALA language from the policy manual, Cook suggested the board could work through the document and “pick and choose” which portions to discard – but Mossburg said she wasn’t interested in that option.

“I said my piece on this, (and) I’m not going to say any more,” Mossburg said. “I made my motion, and I would like it to be voted on.”

‘Politically charged’

McClelland, Wetzel, Mossburg, and Board Member David Mossburg all voted in favor of the motion, while Cook offered the lone “no” vote.

“This is a bad step,” Marple said after the votes were cast. “This is regressive, and it is politically motivated. And I don’t think you’ve demonstrated any evidence that our library system has been politically influenced by the (ALA).”

She had made a similar comment earlier in the discussion when she asked the board, “What do you want to gain by doing this?”

“These are documents that keep our libraries from taking a political bias,” she said. “And I feel like, if you guys vote for this, you’re demonstrating your political bias – (and) I don’t think that you guys need to go there, because that’s not the purpose of this board.”

Wetzel disagreed that the vote was politically motivated, however, calling it a “common sense” decision, and Marta Mossburg pointed out that the Fremont County Commission recently appointed Wetzel to the Library Board knowing she was in favor of disassociating from the ALA.

“That doesn’t mean that’s the best for the library system,” Marple replied, asking the board to “be careful with what choices that you are making.”

Later, Board Chair Kristen McClelland said it’s the ALA that has become “quite politically charged” in recent years.

“(That’s) the whole point of the motion,” McClelland said. “I want the library to thrive non-politically. I want it to thrive as a community center. … I don’t see (anything) crashing down by pulling ALA language out.”

Marple noted that the Fremont County Attorney will have to review the board decision, and a public comment period will have to be provided before the motion is enacted.

For more information, contact the FCLS.