Hayden was appointed by then-President Obama in 2016 and was the first woman and first African American to serve in the role.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
President Trump fired the librarian of Congress this morning. That’s according to a source familliar with the situation. Carla Hayden was the first woman and the first African American to serve as the head of the largest library in the world. The conservative group The American Accountability Foundation had been attacking Hayden, accusing her of being anti-Trump and accusing her of promoting children’s books with, quote, “radical content.” The firing comes after President Trump’s executive orders targeting the Smithsonian for endorsing what he calls, quote, “divisive race-centered ideology.” In an interview recorded last week with GBH News in Boston before she was fired, Hayden was asked about what would happen if pressure from the federal government was turned on the Library of Congress.
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CARLA HAYDEN: The Library of Congress serves Congress and the people Congress serves. So you’re talking about every American. Every member of Congress represents a community. And so we are really trying to make sure that members understand that what happens at the Library of Congress affects the people that they serve, and we’re making sure that they understand that we serve them but also the people who put them in place.
FADEL: Then-President Barack Obama nominated Hayden in 2016, with her term set to expire next year. GBH News also asked Hayden about whether she was worried about her term not getting renewed.
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HAYDEN: I would be honored to be able to finish out my term that I have now and really interested to see how it would turn out in terms of reappointment or possibility of that.
FADEL: The position used to be a lifetime appointment, but in 2015, Congress changed that to a 10-year term, although it gave the president the power to reappoint the same person.
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