Dr. Carla Hayden is everything a modern librarian should be (“Trump fires Librarian of Congress and Baltimorean Carla Hayden,” May 8). She has worked to expand access to literature and reading with the goal of opening minds and encouraging individuals of all ages and backgrounds to think for themselves and understand the world around them. She has embraced the digital age, working tirelessly as our nation’s top librarian to ensure the vast literary and academic resources of the Library of Congress are widely accessible. For more than two decades, as leader of Baltimore’s amazing Enoch Pratt Free Library, she defended the free flow of information and encouraged community involvement. I was proud to recommend her to President Barack Obama for a 10-year term as Librarian of Congress. So, I was appalled but not surprised that she was unceremoniously fired by President Donald Trump this past week — more than a year shy of the end of her term. Dr. Hayden, a groundbreaking, glass-ceiling-shattering, African-American woman who has made it her life’s work to spread the joy of knowledge and counter ignorance and misinformation, is everything that threatens Trump’s myopic view of the world. As president of the United States, he should be doing all he can to strengthen America and embrace our people and history — as diverse and complex as they are. Instead, he acts as Bully-in-Chief, promoting book bans and using fear and misinformation to push his mythical view of a homogenous America. America IS the greatest nation on Earth because throughout our history we have been thirsty for knowledge and used that drive to push boundaries, create and innovate. We are not a perfect nation — no nation ever has been — but learning from our history and becoming a better nation because of it is kind of the whole point. We grow and learn. We struggle and succeed. The bludgeoning of American arts, academia and culture must come to an end. Dr. Hayden, America’s top librarian, is the latest victim of this extremist crusade. Please let her be the last. Let’s come to our senses as a nation and say no. We will not let the rich heritage and diverse culture of our nation be destroyed and erased any longer.
— Ben Cardin, Baltimore
The letter-writer retired as Maryland’s senior U.S. senator in January.
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