As the calendar ticks toward September 30 and the end of fiscal 2025, at which time U.S. legislators will determine FY 2026 appropriations for public institutions, 21 states’ attorneys general have asked the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island to enter a summary judgment in State of Rhode Island v. Trump. They seek a permanent injunction to keep the Institute of Museum and Library Services, along with the Minority Business Development Agency and Federal Conciliation and Remediation Service, fully staffed and operational.
Rhode Island v. Trump is one of two cases to address the fate of IMLS, whose annual Grants to States are foundational for state public library systems and whose competitive grants ensure library research and professional development nationwide. On June 6, a federal court for the District of Columbia denied a preliminary injunction to pause the demolition of the agency in a case brought by the American Library Association and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees.
The 21 attorneys general filed their complaint on April 4, in response to a March 14 White House executive order that severely curtailed the statutory functions of IMLS, MBDA, FCRS, and four more federal agencies. On May 13, Rhode Island district court judge John J. McConnell Jr. found the defendants’ actions unconstitutional and ordered a preliminary injunction. The court instructed the defendants to halt the dismantling of the three agencies, bring employees and contractors back to the offices, and resume funding grants.
Now, “the Court should enter judgment in the Plaintiff States’ favor, vacate the Closure Decisions, and permanently enjoin defendants from implementing the Reduction EO and the Closure Decisions,” the plaintiffs wrote on August 22. They added that they “request oral argument on this motion.”
A 301-page list of “undisputed facts” accompanied their motion for summary judgment. This blow-by-blow account details the EO’s implementation and supplies examples of the EO’s damage to each state’s public libraries. “Although funding for IMLS only constitutes 0.0046% of the federal budget, IMLS provides critical resources,” the attorneys wrote, noting that in FY 2024, the agency distributed $180,000,000 to libraries through Grants to States program, $31,050,000 to competitive library grants, and $55,450,000 to U.S. museums.
Hours before the EO was issued, for instance, IMLS acting director Cyndee Landrum learned she had been demoted to deputy director. Office of Museum Services deputy director Laura Huerta Migus, who was later involuntarily terminated along with other non-union IMLS employees, told IMLS staff that the agency “might be stripped ‘down to the studs,’” an apt metaphor for the outcome.
On March 19, U.S. deputy secretary of labor Keith Sonderling arrived at IMLS offices with a security detail, to be sworn in as IMLS acting director. “One of the security officials remarked that Sonderling would not stay at the agency long [that day], and that IMLS staff would not stay at the agency long, either,” the list of facts reported.
The numerical reckoning describes how just 12 of the agency’s approximately 77 regular staff remained in the office, while most of the employees who processed or administered grant programs waited on paid administrative leave, dreading a reduction in force (RIF). Though Judge McConnell’s ruling ultimately averted the RIF for union-protected staffers, “IMLS lost the ability to process new grants or service existing grants,” the document explains, and the Office of Research and Evaluation sat dormant, meaning that the biannual Public Library Survey likely “will cease to be issued.”
As the office foundered from March through the preliminary injunction’s relief in May, the effects fanned out across the 21 plaintiff states’ library systems, resulting in furloughs—notably in Maine—and suspended programming. With grants declared canceled or left unprocessed, people decided not to proceed with research, lost their jobs, or chose not to make orders or hires.
Arizona State Library eliminated its Summer Library Institute, which provides professional development for rural library staff. In Delaware, a loss of Grants to States would undermine statewide literacy services for all ages, according to testimony from Annie Norman, librarian and division director for the Delaware Department of State and former IMLS board member. (The IMLS board of directors was fired by the administration April 3.)
Meanwhile, In Michigan, circulation of materials is “immediately impaired” by grant delays and uncertainty, according to state librarian Randy Riley. And the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners noted that the loss of Grants to States would make it unable to offer a summer reading program or circulate e-books and audiobooks to its 375 libraries. Research across the U.S., such as the University of Maryland–College Park’s “Hatchlings Project: Community-Library Partnerships to Reduce Childhood Literacy Inequities,” depends on federal dollars for facilitators and participants.
The American Library Association and other library supporters are sounding the alarm for IMLS and federal funding, urging the public to contact their representatives and advocate for libraries.
