Intellectual Freedom and Social Justice

After giving a couple of talks on this topic, I was invited to submit an article to the Texas Library Journal, which comes out today. I'm reposting it here. 

Embedding professional values takes time, and grows from social context

Professions are predicated on values. In 1892, the American Library Association (ALA) was guided by this modest motto: "The best books for the most people at the least cost." 

In 1938, Des Moines Public Library director, Forrest Spaulding, noted that, "Today indications in many parts of the world point to growing intolerance, suppression of free speech and censorship affecting the rights of minorities and individuals." Among those indications was the rise of Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, and Stalin in the Soviet Union. Books under attack in Des Moines eventually included Mein Kampf (anti-Semitic) and Grapes of Wrath (communist). In response, Spaulding pitched a "Library's Bill of Rights" to his board. In 1939, it was revised and adopted by the council of the American Library Association. Since then, it has been adopted by many libraries.

That marked the true beginning of intellectual freedom as a core value of librarianship. It also may have reflected a dawning social justice awareness: People had the right, and perhaps the obligation, to investigate what was going on in the world, the better to prevent human tragedy and oppression.

Social Justice or Social Responsibility (an outgrowth of the civil rights movement and student activism), also has a long history in librarianship. But the core tenets of Social Justice as a rising value in librarianship seem to trace their origin to Critical Race Theory (CRT). In the mid-1970s, CRT was proposed by African American legal scholars. They argued that the history of race relations in the United States, poisoned by the enslavement of Africans, was so pernicious and systemic that it constituted a special case; First Amendment protections should not apply to racist speech. Eventually, this area of writing and research generated many of the terms we now use to discuss Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI): white privilege, unconscious bias, microaggressions, and systemic racism in many institutions, pointedly including the law. Critical Race Theory also included the need to transform society through principled resistance, through calling out racist or bigoted behavior, and through being better allies to marginalized people. 

And just as intellectual freedom had the social context of World War II, followed by McCarthyism, followed by student protests against an unpopular war, social justice has a context as well. In the 21st century alone it ranged from anti-Milo Yiannopoulos protests at Berkeley to the Black Lives Matter protests following a series of high profile murders of Black men, women, and teenagers by police.

Social justice, like intellectual freedom, now has official library committees that embrace the cause, boasts many professional speeches and writings, has established its own office (of Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services), and shares emerging best practices.

Is there room for two values in librarianship? Yes.

We can share values, and have different priorities

Many intellectual freedom aficionadoes also value social justice. Many avowed social justice advocates are fiercely opposed to censorship. But even when we share those values, we may not prioritize them the same way.

That can be driven by personal experience (being a Black or Queer librarian, for example), by social context (what is happening as one comes of age), or community politics (municipal or county power struggles, or race relations, for instance).

But while there is certainly tension at times between the two values, I do not believe that they are really, at base, opposed. The purpose of free speech is greater individual and social freedom, and something we talk too little about these days: The Common Good. Before groups can advocate for a more just society, they must have the ability to meet, to speak, and to plumb both past and emerging literature. Indeed, that gathering and speaking is part of the advocacy. Others, of course, will advocate for their views, too.

In libraries, Intellectual Freedom serves Social Justice

I reject the idea that the First Amendment is a tool of oppression in libraries. One need only review ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom's annual "most challenged" list to see the stark truth: Overwhelmingly, challenges against American libraries tend to concentrate on works by or about traditionally marginalized populations.

Libraries that have adopted the Library Bill of Rights, that have a Collection Policy and a Request for Reconsideration process, that reach out for support from the Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), are better positioned to resist those challenges. In libraries, our policies and practices do not use the idea of intellectual freedom to suppress social justice--rather, to defend it. This has been the case since the OIF's founding.

How we talk to each other matters

When I became a librarian, the defense of intellectual freedom was suffused with righteous anger and indignation. Intellectual freedom heroes got awards. Librarians who backed down--when we knew about it (and usually we didn't)--could expect harsh criticism from other librarians.

Then I became a library director. My library wound up dealing with 250 challenges over the space of 24 years. In the process, I realized that a pugnacious free speech warrior stance, in my very conservative county, would be institutional suicide. I learned that you don't change people's minds by yelling at them. But you do lose their support. Moreover, after a lot of careful thought, I realized that times had changed. My library’s challenges weren't always, weren't even usually, ideological. They were emotional, clustering around materials and services for children between the ages of 4-6, and 14-16.

By then I was a parent, too. Those ages are key transitions in the life of your offspring: from toddlerhood to childhood, and from childhood to adulthood. The unifying concern was love and loss and grief. Parents stepped in defensively to "protect the innocence" of children they had trouble letting go of.

That realization of the emotional context of challenges profoundly changed the way I talked and thought about censorship. I could listen more deeply and compassionately to the parents, focusing more on reassurance than contradiction. Children do, mostly, absorb their parents' values. And it doesn't take much reflection to see that it's safer to prepare yourself for conflict by reading about it in the safety of the library, than encountering it for the first time on the streets.

Many new library directors, deeply passionate about social justice issues, wind up in rural public libraries, most of which trend red. Those communities don't like being yelled at or lectured to, either. Can we learn to talk about the issues with our communities, and with each other, in ways that promote understanding rather than performative confrontation?

We must diversify our collections and staff

The conversation among librarians will probably continue with some tension, and that’s ok. But maintaining professional courtesy and personal goodwill, as important as they are, are not as key as the two areas libraries must address in the next decade. Neither problem is new. Both problems have proven thus far intractable to our best efforts.

The first is the diversity of our collections. The Big Four publishers have many of the same problems as libraries. They hire people like themselves (mostly white) and those people acquire books that appeal to themselves. Bottom line: our collections are not much more diverse than they were 20 years ago, although there is some modest progress at least in children’s publishing. I believe the only solution is to ramp up our purchases from self-published authors, and cultivate those authors locally. People who can't find books about people like themselves conclude that libraries aren't relevant to them. As our communities continue to diversify, that becomes an existential threat to ongoing support. But we should be telling the whole human story anyhow.

The second is the diversity of our staff. Again, the less we look like our communities, the less likely it is that we matter to them. We need to appeal sooner and younger to people of color. It's just easier to recruit somebody early, then help them get a degree, than to wait for them to run the gauntlet of library school and come looking for us.

Our culture needs us

I often tell the story of the Darby (MT) Community Public Library, in which the library director managed a controversial "Muslim Journey" program with great thoughtfulness. Her efforts were rewarded with participants that spoke of their thirst for meaningful conversation, and their gratitude for finding it at the library.

I also have spoken with a number of young librarians, entering the profession as advocates for social justice, who offer programs, and in the process become more expert, more inclusive, and less strident. That was my experience with IF outreach, too.

Many Americans weary of endless culture wars, of perpetual outrage, and of a world view that focuses only on being right, instead of being kind, friendly, or curious.

Our culture, whether local, regional, or national, needs us. And we librarians need each other.