Report: “In a Major Win for Libraries, Federal Judge Orders IMLS to Be Restored”

UPDATE (May 21, 2025) Statement: ALA Welcomes IMLS Staff Return and Select Grant Reinstatements, Cautiously Optimistic About National Case (via ALA)

—- End Update—-

From Words and Money:

Finally, some good news for the library community. On May 13, federal judge John G. McConnell in Rhode Island issued a sweeping preliminary injunction blocking Trump administration officials from acting on the president’s March 14 executive order to dismantle the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Furthermore, the court ordered the administration to immediately takes steps to restore the agency’s employees and grant funding activities.

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Specifically, McConnell ordered the Trump administration to:

• Promptly take all necessary steps to reverse any “policies, memoranda, directives, or actions” aimed at complying with Trump’s March 14 executive order.  
• Refrain from “any further actions to eliminate” the IMLS pursuant to the executive order.
• Take all necessary steps to restore all “employees and personal service contractors who were involuntarily placed on leave or involuntarily terminated.”
• Refrain from any further attempts to “pause, cancel, or otherwise terminate” IMLS grants or contracts other than in cases where grantees or contractors have not complied with their terms.  
• Take “immediate steps to resume the “processing, disbursement, and payment of already awarded funding, and to release awarded funds previously withheld or rendered in accessible” due to the executive order.

Learn More, Read the Complete Article

Direct to Preliminary Injunction(via CourtListener)
4 pages; PDF. 

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