A temporary restraining order, issued May 1, offers some relief following a chaotic two months at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

In every year of his first administration, President Donald Trump’s preliminary federal budget proposal would call for defunding IMLS. These cuts, as well as others to cultural heritage, health and human services, environmental, and education agencies and executive departments, were framed as domestic spending reductions to enable increases in military and national security spending—despite their representing small pieces of the overall national budget.

In response, organizations such as the American Library Association (ALA) and EveryLibrary launched campaigns providing information and advocacy resources for the public to support IMLS through letter-writing, email, and phone calls to elected officials. Each year, when the final budget was released, IMLS and the Library Services Technology Act (LSTA) funding was restored—and often increased.

This year’s fight for IMLS looks considerably different.

In an executive order dated March 14, Trump called for the elimination of IMLS and six other government entities, reducing the agency to its “statutory functions,” in the name of reducing “elements of the Federal bureaucracy that the President has determined are unnecessary” (IMLS represents .0046 percent of the federal budget). Non-statutory functions were to be “eliminated to the maximum extent.” The following week, Keith E. Sonderling, a lawyer who most recently served as Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission, was sworn in as the Acting Director of IMLS. He has committed to “steering this organization in lockstep with this Administration to enhance efficiency and foster innovation,” according to a statement released by IMLS.

In response, the board of IMLS drafted a letter to Sonderling clearly outlining the agency’s core statutory obligations “that cannot be paused, reduced, or eliminated without violating Congressional intent and federal statute” as per the Museum and Library Services Act of 2018, which Trump signed into law during his first term. These mandates include the Grants to States program, Native American Library Services, National Leadership Grants Program, State Plan Requirements, and Statutory Disbursement of Funds.

Senators Jack Reed (D-RI), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) sent a similar letter. A coalition of major publishers, consisting of Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster, and Sourcebooks, wrote to Congress urging it to reject the executive order. Libraries, state libraries, and library associations across the country spoke out about how critical IMLS funding is to their work.

ALA wrote Sonderling as well, clearly laying out IMLS’s statutory work, noting, “To the extent funds have been appropriated by Congress, their disbursement and expenditure is a statutorily mandated act which may not be terminated by Executive Order. Therefore, your report to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget should identify this ongoing expenditure as statutorily required.”

The letter added, “Ensuring that these funds are expended efficiently, in compliance with law, and free from waste, fraud, or abuse, requires diligent oversight by the talented staff of IMLS.”

On March 31, all but 12 of IMLS’s approximately 75 staff members were notified that they would be placed on administrative leave for 90 days. All email addresses were disabled, leaving no means of communication about any outstanding grants and awards. All 23 members of the IMLS board were terminated days later. In April, some 90 grants in the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian program and the National Leadership Grants programs were terminated, six months early.

21 STATES SUE TRUMP

On April 4, a coalition of 21 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, stating that the executive order is unlawful and must be reversed. The suit, Rhode Island v. Trump, focuses on the impact on IMLS, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and the Minority Business Development Agency, whose “‘full compliance’ has meant gutting every one of their operations—statutorily mandated or not.”

It goes on to state, “The sudden halting of the agencies’ work after decades of close cooperation will immediately put at risk hundreds of millions of dollars in grant funding on which the States depend, and undermine library programs, economic opportunity, and the free flow of commerce throughout the country.”

“The Trump Administration is once again violating the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law by attempting to unilaterally shut down agencies the President doesn’t like, including agencies that give the public access to facts, knowledge, and cultural heritage for free or at low cost,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a release.

A motion hearing to enjoin the agencies’ implementation of the executive order was held at the District Court of Rhode Island on April 18. As reported by Publishers Weekly, Rhode Island Solicitor General and Assistant Attorney General Katherine Sadeck and Assistant Attorney General Natalya Buckler, speaking on behalf of the plaintiffs, outlined the executive order’s potential harms. As an example, they cited the Maine State Library—which was forced to lay off 13 employees whose positions are supported by federal funding and closed to the public for a two-week reorganizational period—noting that even financial compensation would not make up for current or future loss of services.

While Abigail Stout, a U.S. Department of Justice lawyer testifying for the defense, called claims of irreparable harm “speculative in nature” and deemed the plaintiffs’ motion “a bit hyperbolic,” Judge John J. McConnell Jr. noted that the defense had not actually rebutted the plaintiffs’ statements. “It’s actually frustrating…for a court to be presented with evidence on one side and no evidence at all on the other side,” he said.

On May 6, Judge John J. McConnell Jr. issued a preliminary injunction in Rhode Island vs. Trump, stating that the actions of the executive order fall under the definition of “arbitrary and capricious,” as “IMLS, MBDA, and FMCS have not provided a rational connection between the sweeping actions they have taken and the vague, conclusory justifications they have provided,” and that the recision of IMLS grants is in violation of Constitutional law. See the full ruling here.

A PARTIAL VICTORY FOR ALA

Days following the filing of Rhode Island v. Trump, ALA joined forces with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the largest union representing museum and library workers, to challenge the Trump administration’s elimination of IMLS in a lawsuit initiated on their behalf by Democracy Forward and co-counsel Gair Gallo Eberhard LLP. Democracy Forward, a nonprofit legal services and public policy research organization, previously represented a coalition of librarians, booksellers, and readers in Arkansas who challenged part of a law that threatened to criminalize library workers in 2023, and has taken on freedom to read cases in Florida and Alabama as well.

American Library Association v. Sonderling notes, in part, “Defendants have already canceled statutorily required grants to several state libraries. It is only a matter of time before Defendants cancel en masse IMLS grants that fund activities at libraries across the country. Even if grants are not canceled, the severely reduced workforce will not be able to effectively and timely process grant payments and applications. Many IMLS grantees have already expended funds in reliance on grant awards and have submitted or will soon submit requests for reimbursement to IMLS for these expenditures. Without grant funding or IMLS staff to process reimbursements, local and state libraries will suffer an immediate and irreparable inability to pay vendors or staff hired in reliance on IMLS’ promise to make these reimbursements.”

On April 10, ALA and AFSCME filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to stop the dismantling of IMLS. The hearing took place in DC District Court on April 30, days before the mass layoff of IMLS employees was set to take effect on May 4. Judge Richard J. Leon allowed that “Plaintiffs have demonstrated irreparable injury,” and, late on May 1, granted a temporary restraining order to block the dismantling of the agency.

The six-page order stated. “Plaintiffs have established that the grant terminations, loss of access to IMLS expertise and services, and loss of access to IMLS data have forced libraries to end programs midstream, fire employees, and, in some cases, completely shutter…. These are not merely economic harms.”

The order covers a brief period of time and does not provide all of the relief sought by the plaintiffs in the multipart motion. Rather, it will prevent IMLS from terminating staff, and from further canceling or failing to fund grants or contracts, allowing the agency to continue operations as required by Congress while the court hears the case in full.

“As we continue to move through this process, we will continue to stay the course and make sure that everyone understands exactly what is at stake here,” ALA President Cindy Hohl told LJ on the day of the hearing.

IMLS will still need to be funded in FY26. The administration's preliminary budget request, released May 2, calls, once again, for the elimination of the agency’s federal funding, along with that of the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, AmeriCorps, and others. ALA has launched a #FundLibraries campaign, calling on advocates across the country to urge their members of Congress to cosign letters of support, led by Congressman Don Bacon (R-NE-02) and Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA-02), for the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) and the Department of Education’s Innovative Approaches to Literacy (IAL) program.

“That is the main action point that Americans need to be focused on and taking an active stance on at this time,” said Hohl. “We need everyone contacting their representatives, asking for their support, letting them know how fundamental this reauthorization from Congress would be. We need to make sure that everyone is requesting the protection of funding through the IMLS and asking Congress to take that action.”