Montana State Library Exits National Group Over 'Marxist Lesbian' President

The Montana State Library Commission has abandoned the American Library Association because the group's newly-installed president described herself as a "Marxist Lesbian" in a since-deleted Twitter post. 

“Our oath of office and resulting duty to the Constitution forbids association with an organization led by a Marxist,” Montana's commission voted to declare in a letter informing the ALA of its exit. That Marxist, Emily Drabinski took her post this month, after being elected in April 2022. At the time, she celebrated her ascendancy to the helm of the world's largest and oldest library association with a tweet dripping with socialist buzzwords: 

"I just cannot believe that a Marxist lesbian who believes that collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world is president elect of ALA. I am so excited for what we will do together. Solidarity!"

In a 2022 interview, Drabinski told socialist Jacobin magazine, "I believe the way to get people to understand why libraries are important is by engaging people in a struggle for the fair share of the social wage...because we are all suffering from the maldistribution of wealth." She openly embraced the idea that the ALA is a platform for political reorganization of American society, saying "I think what the ALA could do is teach people to have an organizing conversation." 

In 2021, she gave a presentation titled "Teaching the Radical Catalog," asserting that "when we teach students how to retrieve information, we are also teaching about structures of power and how to navigate them." That talk was also heavy on gender-spectrum blather. Her own scholarship includes a paper titled "Queering the Catalog: Queer Theory and the Politics of Correction." 

Montana's library commission voted for the ALA exit by a 5-1 margin, following an hour-long public-comment session that was likewise lopsided in opposition to the ALA. Speakers included members of Moms for Liberty, a group that challenges "woke" culture and supports policies that "defend against government overreach and secure parental rights." 

“The fact that the ALA is led by a Marxist is absolutely important, because the ALA is using tenets of Marxism and the sexualization and radicalization of children, thus breaking down America’s families,” said one speaker. Another, a Soviet ex-patriate, spoke of the devastation inflicted by Stalinism. 

Libraries have been a major flash point in the ongoing culture wars, with clashes erupting over the hosting of drag queen story hours for children and the promotion of highly sexualized books for juveniles. 

In a lengthy statement, the ALA didn't address the criticism of electing an activist Marxist to its presidency, instead saying it's focused on "serving people of all demographic backgrounds and ideologies." The group also listed various ALA grants that have benefitted Montana libraries. The Montana Library Association issued its own statement saying it "deeply regrets" the Montana State Library Commission's decision. 

As the interim chief librarian at City University of New York, Drabinski ran for the ALA presidency on a platform that included "collective organizing for collective power" and a "Green New Deal for libraries," which she claimed were threatened by floods, hurricanes and wildfires resulting from climate change. 

While disassociation from a now-Marxist-led organization is laudable, the Montana commission's reference to their constitutional oath is somewhat off-target. As socialist Jacobin magazine noted, the Constitution doesn't reference Marxism, having been ratified about 30 years before Marx's birth.

Of course, socialism is certainly antithetical to America's founding ideals: Benjamin Franklin -- who founded the country's first library in Philadelphia -- is rolling in his grave.