The Trump administration dismissed the congress librarian on Thursday, Carla D. Hayden, attracting a rapid outcry. Dr. Hayden was the first African-American woman and the first woman to serve as head of the institution.
Dr. Hayden, appointed 14th Librarian of Congress by President Barack Obama in 2016, had supervised the library by the first term of President Trump. The library, the oldest cultural institution managed by the government in the United States, rarely receives a new leader. Dr. Hayden was his first since 1987.
She was dismissed in an email with two sentences from Trent Morse, deputy director of the White House staff, according to a screenshot published by Senator Martin Heinrich of the New Mexico, the best democrat of the sub-comity of credits on the legislative branch.
“On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I write to inform you that your position as a congress librarian is terminated with the effect immediately,” said the email, without quoting. “Thank you for your service.”
A spokesperson for the Congress Library, Roswell Encina, confirmed the dismissal. Reached by phone, Dr. Hayden, 72, refused to comment.
The representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the chief of the Democrat minority, published a declaration describing Dr. Hayden as a chief of the library “accomplished, in principle and principle” of the library.
“Donald Trump’s unfair decision to dismiss Dr. Hayden in an email sent by a random political hack is a shame and the last in his continuous effort to prohibit books, laundering American history and going back,” said Jeffries.
Mr. Morse did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
Since his return to duties, President Trump has quickly moved to assert control of American cultural institutions, take over the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and declare war on the universities of the Ivy League.
An push to serve references to diversity and inclusion led to a page on Jackie Robinson’s life and military career, temporarily disappearing on the Pentagon website. The web pages of the National Cemetery of Arlington highlighting the graves of the members of the black and female service have disappeared. Books such as “To Kill A Mockingbird”, Harper Lee’s novel on racism in the south of the era of depression, were purged schools led by the Department of Defense, according to a trial brought by the American Union American.
The Library of Congress, which describes itself as the largest library in the world, houses millions of articles, with collections of books on foreign languages and world history, as well as music, films and newspapers. It serves as a research branch for congress and is open to the public.
Representative Rosa Delauro, the best democrat of the credit committee, said Dr. Hayden was widely admired by the members of the Congress.
“His dismissal is not only an affront to his historic service, but a direct attack on the independence of one of our most revered institutions,” said Delauro in a statement.
Dr. Hayden has become the librarian of the congress after a long race as a baltimore chief librarian, her longtime house, where she had revised the city’s public library system.
She had known Mr. Obama since his beginnings as a librarian working in the Chicago public library. She started as a librarian in Chicago in 1973 and finally became the chief librarian of the city.
But she hosted a special appreciation for the Congress Library, which she called a “treasure chest”.
“It’s like paradise,” she said in a video published by the White House of Obama when she was nominated to be a librarian of the Congress. In the video, she thought about her status as a first woman and the first black librarian in the congress, saying that her selection showed “what a national library can be”.
“It’s inclusive,” she said. “It can be part of everyone’s history. I believe in that libraries can be for a civilized society and a country open to everyone. ”
EDMONDSON CATIE And Emily Cochrane Contributed reports.
