Is the American Library Association’s Demise Imminent? More States Sever Ties With the Organization

The American Library Association's effort to indoctrinate children could be backfiring.

Photo by 🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič on Unsplash

It appears the controversy over inappropriate books on library shelves is hitting a tipping point, which has caused a ripple effect through various parts of the country. Last month, Texas decided to cut ties with the American Library Association (ALA).

Now, other states like Wyoming, Montana, and Missouri are following suit. If more states get on the bandwagon, what will happen to the ALA? We need only look at the fate of the National School Boards Association (NSBA) after the fallout from the “domestic terrorist” controversy.

This summer, the state libraries in Montana, Missouri and Texas and the local library in Midland, Texas, announced they're leaving the ALA, with possibly more to come. Right-wing lawmakers in at least nine other states — Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming — demand similar action.

Part of the reason is the association's defense of disputed books, many of which have LGBTQ+ and racial themes. A tweet by ALA President Emily Drabinski last year in which she called herself a “Marxist lesbian” also has drawn criticism and led to the Montana and Texas state library departures.

Public education and libraries are supposed to be non-partisan. But the American Library Association clearly has a partisan agenda that involves indoctrinating children to buy into Marxist ideology. The organization, which is funded by taxpayer dollars, claims that it exists purely to be a resource for communities across the country. However, the fact that its membership has fallen by 14 percent seems to suggest it is out of touch with parents.

Indeed, Emily Drabinski, president of the ALA, was recently caught on tape at a Socialist conference arguing that libraries “need to be on the agenda of socialist organizing,” according to a report from author and psychologist Dr. Karlyn Borysenko.

Dan Kleinman of SafeLibraries, a longtime critic of the ALA, told RedState that Drabinski “trained” librarians on presenting material that is “sexually inappropriate for minors” while framing it as “diversity and inclusion.”

"Indeed, the White House has adopted American Library Association’s view and is now requiring schools to keep diverse and inclusive books in school libraries despite complaints of parents,” Kleinman said. “So First Amendment rights are robbed by bureaucrats, and children are the victims. And now we know what diverse and inclusive means: sexually inappropriate. And did the media report on that? Of course not."

Kleinman further summed up the situation with the ALA:

Literacy has completely disappeared from ALA’s dashboard, it’s now explicitly socialism, as proven by Dr. Karlyn Borysenko’s undercover investigation. Libraries are being actively subverted to work against communities. Why would anyone find their own destruction? This is why people and groups are dropping out of ALA, and Dr. Borysenko’s exposé should accelerate that greatly.

In an environment where the American Library Association and other organizations are finding themselves under further scrutiny, it is clear that parents and communities are fighting back against efforts to influence young minds into embracing Marxism.

In this vein, it is highly possible that the ALA will be in the same situation as the NSBA, which lost a drastic number of members after it colluded with the Justice Department to send a letter to the FBI requesting that parents speaking out at school board meetings be placed in the same category as domestic terrorists:

The NSBA’s letter to President Biden has enraged half of the states in the union now by suggesting that parental involvement in school board meetings amounts to“domestic terrorism” and by calling on the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Secret Service to quash parent interference. The letter’s first draft apparently included a petition for use of the Army National Guard but a different copy was sent.

“[W]ith such acute threats and actions that are disruptive to our students’ well-being, to the safety of public school officials and personnel, and to interstate commerce, we urge the federal government’s intervention against individuals or hate groups who are targeting our schools and educators,” the letter read.

As a result, over half of the states withdrew from the NSBA, which was once one of the most prominent teachers unions in the nation. It seems highly likely that more states will leave the ALA over its support of sexually inappropriate material in libraries and efforts to censor voices espousing more traditional conservative values.

As Kleinman noted:

This is a very serious issue since the American Library Association view has been adopted by the White House and is about to be spread nationwide. It should not be getting the usual media disinformation treatment. Frankly, there should be congressional hearings into what is going on in the White House, and why it promotes the view of the American Library Association, a view that obviously allows children access to absolutely everything, no matter how inappropriate, and is doing so in accordance with a Marxist worldview.