ALA Urges Court to Deny DOJ’s Motion for Reconsideration in IMLS Case

Arguing that the Trump Administration is still determined to “rapidly dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services,” lawyers for the American Library Association urged federal judge Richard J. Leon to reject a motion for reconsideration by DOJ lawyers that seeks to dissolve the judge's May 1 temporary restraining order blocking the further destruction of the agency.

The filing comes after Trump Administration lawyers, citing a recent appeals court ruling in Widakuswara v. Lake, an action DOJ lawyers call "strikingly similar" to the IMLS case now before Leon, argued that the "dispositive analysis" in the appeals court decision should apply "in equal force" to the ALA’s IMLS case, because the IMLS case "cannot meaningfully be distinguished" from Widakuswara.

In Widakuswara, judge Royce C. Lamberth, a Reagan-appointed conservative senior judge issued an April 22 preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration’s dismantling of United States Agency for Global Media, which, like the IMLS, was part of the administration's March 14 executive order.  

But in a split decision delivered on May 3, appeals court judges Gregory G. Katsas and Neomi Rao—both Trump appointees—voted to stay Lamberth’s injunction, concluding that, contrary to Lamberth's findings, the government was in fact likely to prevail in the case, based on the DOJ's standing and venue arguments that were rejected by Lamberth, as well as in two parallel IMLS cases. A third judge on the panel, Cornelia T.L. Pillard, an Obama appointee, issued a fiery and lengthy dissent rejecting the administration's defenses.

In their May 13 filing, ALA lawyers said the DOJ’s motion for reconsideration falls far short of the legal standard required to succeed.

“Defendants ask this Court to reconsider its temporary restraining order based on the issuance of a stay in another case, even though that stay has itself since been administratively stayed. But there has been no change in controlling law, no new evidence that favors reconsideration, and no clear error by this Court,” ALA lawyers argue. “Defendants’ sole basis for reconsideration is that an order issued by a divided special panel of the D.C. Circuit to stay preliminary injunctions entered by Judge Lamberth in four related cases involving the United States Agency for Global Media represents ‘guidance on the controlling law.’ But this order does not warrant reconsideration of the Court’s order, nor does it lessen Plaintiffs’ entitlement to a preliminary injunction.”

ALA lawyers also note that the Washington D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is currently considering whether to rehear the appeal decision en banc before the full court.

In addition, in a separate supplemental filing, ALA lawyers offered new evidence of disturbing developments at IMLS, including overt actions to politicize the agency.

“Program staff have been instructed by political staff to cherry-pick grant applications for 2025 grant awards to select a handful of applications that appear to align with administration priorities so that those applications may be granted,” ALA lawyers told the court. “Staff were instructed to avoid any references to ‘DEI,’ ‘climate change,’ or other disfavored concepts, in conflict with regulations governing government grants that provide for merit-based review of grant applications.”

Such “politicized decision-making” conflicts with the "statutory mandates of the Museum and Library Services Act," the ALA brief states.

Meanwhile, ALA lawyers received a major assist from a federal judge in Rhode Island, who this week issued a sweeping preliminary injunction in a parallel case filed by 21 states. In his May 13 injunction, judge John G. McConnell blocked the administration from enforcing Trump’s May 14 executive order, and ordered IMLS and two other agencies targeted by the administration to be restored.

The DOJ is set to respond to the ALA briefs by May 16.