The Allegory of the Meniscus or Accepting the Reality of Middle Management in Higher Education

Editor’s note: We welcome a guest blog post from Dustin Fife, College Librarian at Colorado College Library.

As with so many people who have recently completed a dissertation, I worry/assume that it will not find a broad audience, which is okay. However, there was one aspect of my study that felt so essential to the daily life of higher education that I translated it into this format and have focused on what I believe is a particularly important and illuminating illustration. I spent time with academic library administrators (deans and directors) exploring their experiences with DEIA work and had a key framework reinforced throughout the interviews for better understanding almost everything they do. It will not sound monumental at first, but the lived experiences of the people with whom I worked, along with my own experiences leading libraries and observing campuses, tells me that we have not accepted this reality within our many academic communities. In the shortest terms possible, department chairs, deans, directors, and academic library administrators are institutional middle managers.

Throughout my research project, one quote more than any other captured this sentiment and the reality that the work of these positions is shaped and constrained by positionality. This quote was given by a library dean using the alias Justice, and I began colloquially referring to it as, The Allegory of the Meniscus.

So, one of the vice presidents here…she used to have this great metaphor that she used. She said department chairs, deans in particular, are in what she called meniscus positions. So, you picture the meniscus in the knee, right? It is subject to constant pressure from above and constant pressure from below. And the meniscus’s job is to try to keep things aligned so that the knee doesn’t blow out. And one of the things that you have to ask yourself when you’re a dean is, do I see myself primarily as a representative of the people organizationally below me up to the university administration, or do I see myself primarily as a representative of the administration down to the people organizationally below me? And of course, the reality is you’re both. You’re always both. (p. 25-26)

So, if you do not always accept that the people in these roles are middle managers, or you do not believe that your chair or dean are constrained by their positionality, spend an afternoon thinking of them as a meniscus. Feel that knee grinding and twisting and balancing. Maybe even try to hop around on one leg. This reframing can change how we all conceptualize what is possible in colleges and universities from these positions and lead to more realistic conversations about DEIA work and a bevy of other topics.

Now, before the organizational scholars scoff, I want to say that I know this is not an earthshaking concept. I know that anyone who looks at an organizational chart should realize that these folks are institutional middle managers. But our daily expectations at colleges and universities do not seem to align with this reality and neither did the lived experiences of my interviewees. Interestingly, the library administrators with whom I worked reported having to convince people within their teams that they were middle managers, with all the obligations and constraints that come with that positionality. When one of the interviewees, Quinn, was discussing the frustrations of middle management and being stuck in the middle with her colleagues, she said, “and I’m like, I know, I feel that way too. And they’re like, no, you’re not, you’re the director. And I’m like, no, I have a boss. We’re all in the middle of something” (p. 27).

I asked library administrators what their role is, or should be, in DEIA work and so much of our conversations revolved around the concepts of middle management that I concluded,

Without this middle management framework in mind, it would be hard to truly understand the experiences of the interviewees. Their structural positionality created the opportunities and constraints by which they experience DEIA work…In short, to better understand the experiences of these library administrators with DEIA work and the choices that they make, we must understand that they are institutional middle managers. Accepting this reality, along with the constraints and opportunities provided by this positionality, should create more realistic conversations within libraries about what is and is not possible within DEIA work. (p. 77)

And while this is not a naked attempt to garner sympathy for people who serve in positions like my own, I think it does provide a pathway to greater understanding within educational organizations.

This concept was further reified by the ways that these library leaders comprehended their roles within DEIA work. “The interviewees emphatically conceptualize their role as facilitators, modelers, prioritizers, strategic emphasizers, and allocators. Their narratives focused heavily on actions that enabled or empowered DEIA work through facilitation and modeling” (p. 77-78) and not on controlling DEIA work. This is emblematic of middle management. The most successful middle managers make things happen for other people by removing barriers and communicating vision.

While this research study was not intended to focus entirely on middle management and DEIA work among library administrators, middle management was a key factor once the stories were collected and analyzed. However, this dissertation also relays so much more about the experiences of these library leaders. They believe that DEIA work is inherently library work and that it is their job to prioritize, enable, and fund it. They believe that hiring processes and policies are one of the best ways for them to influence the culture of DEIA work and the general culture of the institution. They also identified that DEIA work is culture work. Shay summed this up well when they said, “the [DEIA] work is culture work, and it’s always been culture work” and culture work just takes time (p. 45). These voices were paramount to the study and add so much to our understanding of how library leaders experience DEIA work, especially as a phenomenology during the upheaval of 2025 as the Trump Administration worked to nullify and undo diversity, equity, and inclusion work from generations of people.

Regardless, the purpose of this discussion is not to minimize the role of these leaders or diminish their importance. Another thing that was made utterly clear by the interviewees was that for DEIA initiatives to be successful, they needed intentional support from people in these positions, which is true of many types of initiatives in my experience and should not come as a surprise. These constraints do not make leaders any less responsible; however, it is much easier to run an obstacle course with a map of the obstacles. Accepting that chairs, directors, deans, and library administrators are institutional middle managers and do sit in “meniscus positions” helps to chart a map of some of the most important obstacles.

Fife, D. (2026). Diversity, equity, inclusion & access, middle management, and facilitating change in academic libraries during a time of disruption: A phenomenological study of the experience of academic library administrators (Order No. 32788361). Available from Publicly Available Content Database. (3366955209). Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/diversity-equity-inclusion-amp-access-middle/docview/3366955209/se-2

Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and the Library

At Michigan State University, we observe Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (Asian Pacific Islander Desi American and Asian Heritage Month on campus) from mid-March to mid-April because by the time May, the official month, rolls around, most students have left campus for the summer. This makes for an event-filled few weeks leading up to finals, but luckily besides a presentation in Hindi class, I don’t have to worry about finals and can focus on programming around APIDA/A Heritage Month events.

I’m the librarian for South and Southeast Asian studies, so technically don’t cover Asian American studies at all. That said, I do participate in activities with the APIDA/A staff organization and over time one thing has led to another and I’ve started doing more Asian American and Pasifika outreach. There’s obviously a lot of crossover between Asian studies and Asian American studies already, and I’ve also found that students really aren’t concerned with the divide between the two. This means that APIDA/A Heritage Month is a good outreach time for me, because there are events readily available for me to attend as a representative of the library and because I can get face-to-face time with people who might not otherwise be coming into the library or contacting me when I might be able to help.

Here’s what I’ve worked on so far this month, which is actually only a fraction of the slate of events and activities happening around campus:

Asian Pacific American Studies Annual Symposium

This is an annual event organized by the academic program on campus where students, faculty, and outside speakers share their research on Asian American and Pacific studies. I’ve tabled at the event for two years now.

At Asian and Asian American studies events where I table, I typically bring some books to give away, since I like to get Asian books back to the community. At any event where I table, I also bring handouts from the library either about what I can do to help library users or about other applicable library services (such as our library accessibility initiatives when I table at disability pride events). I usually make a themed reading list of some sort for the event, so I bring a sign with a link to that. If I have the time, I also like to make minizines with book recommendations around a theme: APALA Literature Award winners, for example, or recent Pasifika-authored books in the collection. Sometimes I also bring other small library giveaways, but usually by this point my table is pretty full.

This event is fun because I get to hear about current research projects and get to meet a lot of students. This year, I was scheduled to table for both days of the symposium and ended up bringing a whole different set of books the second day because I met some students with specific research interests that I could definitely cover.

APIDA/A Heritage Month Book Display

At the MSU library, we regularly have week-long book displays in the lobby featuring books that visitors passing by can pick up and check out. The idea is that they’re based around interesting and timely topics and don’t necessarily include dense academic works. In between topics such as cryptozoology and ancient astronauts, I slip in displays timed for various heritage or pride months, including APIDA/A Heritage Month. As with my tabling, I try to make an accompanying LibGuide that people can reference year-round. I also sometimes break out the minizines if I have any that are particularly relevant.

Asian Pacific American Student Organization’s Speculative Futures Event

This was another standard tabling experience for me, but I was particularly excited about it because the student organization invited me to come—this time it wasn’t a case of me cold emailing organizers and hoping for the best. This event was also fun because it was held at the campus museum, right across the street from the library, so I got to wheel my supplies across the road and didn’t have to worry about lugging all my supplies to and from my car. It’s also always really fun to see what kind of an event the students pull together.

Upcoming Events

I have a few more events on the horizon: a study break organized by the Asian Pacific American Studies Program and another lobby display in May for the national Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. And then it will be time to regroup for the APALA Literature Awards Banquet, but more on that later.

Do you incorporate any campus events into your outreach work or other library programming? Do you have any tips to share?

Integrating interns with disabilities at the library

For the past three years, Michigan State University Libraries has participated as a job site in Spartan Project SEARCH, an MSU-based iteration of the larger Project SEARCH program. Project SEARCH is a transition program for young adults with developmental disabilities in which participants, often recent high school graduates, learn job skills such as how to write a resume while also working half days in various job settings. At MSU, participants work everywhere from the dining halls to the library, learning how jobs work and how they like different job environments.

Spartan Project SEARCH began at MSU in 2016 and the Libraries’ Accessibility unit started participating in Fall 2022. Since then, we have hosted two interns per year, one in the fall and one in the spring. The interns’ rotations in the library typically last about 10 weeks.

When we first began the program, we started small, with interns only coming in a few days per week, but more recent interns have spent four days a week at the library. This would not have been possible without the participation of several units around the Libraries. Usually, our interns spend between one hour and two hours working for one unit before moving to another, allowing them to work on a variety of tasks in a single day.

Currently, interns work on resetting furniture, scanning books for controlled digital lending, collecting books for reshelving, and checking in returned books. They also have the opportunity to assist with smaller projects as they arise, including installing exhibits and participating in user experience testing. Interns also tour other units in the library, such as Cataloging or Maps, so that they can see the breadth of work happening in the library.

Overall, participating in Project SEARCH has been extremely rewarding, but we have learned some things along the way. First, we would not have been a successful program site if the interns worked in only one unit. Having multiple host units allows for interns to learn an array of different skills and experience different kinds of work and work environments. It also helps to fill out their schedule and provides some flexibility as we respond to interns’ interests and needs.

Each intern is different, and though we’ve now developed a process that generally works, we’ve found flexibility to be key in making the experience useful for the intern. We train interns extensively on their tasks, with the goal of them completing their work independently. We do, however, always have someone scheduled to check in with the intern or to provide extra support and training time if they need it. Some interns feel more comfortable shadowing for a longer period of time, others work well when we double check their work with them, and occasionally some just want a bit of company during their shift. Again, responding to interns’ needs and requests has helped to make the training process and transition to independent work run smoothly. Depending on interns’ interests and abilities, we’ve also added or modified work for them.

Providing the interns with routine and consistency also helps to set expectations and keep the internship running smoothly. At the beginning of each new internship, we create a schedule that stays roughly the same, with work in specific units happening at the same time each week, along with some free slots to add in tours. We print a full schedule each week for the interns to reference and take home if they want. This helps interns to anticipate what’s coming up, know where they should be, and know who they should expect to see.

Finally, establishing methods of finding and asking for help has been critical both in the early stages of an internship and later on when interns are working independently. We of course make sure interns know where to find our offices, but because we are so often moving around the building or in meetings, we also give interns our phone numbers and encourage them to text us if there’s a problem. Because there are two of us managing the interns, group messages have been particularly helpful.

Project SEARCH has sites throughout the US and internationally, but it isn’t everywhere. If you’re interested in participating in a similar program in your library, I encourage you to look into similar alternatives as well. Project SEARCH, for example, collaborates with Michigan Rehabilitation Services, and there are likely other similar programs in your state. We’ve found Project SEARCH to certainly be a commitment of time and resources, but also completely worthwhile and a way to make a direct impact in the community.

If your library participates in a similar program or if you’re interested in starting something like this, I’d love to chat more in the comments.

Special thanks to Heidi Schroeder, who initiated the Project SEARCH program in the MSU Libraries and works with me on supervising our interns. This article in the Libraries’ newsletter has more information on MSU Libraries’ participation in Project SEARCH.

Open Letter to CRL from the academic wing of #CripLib

Editor’s note: We welcome a guest blog post from the academic librarians of #CripLib, which focuses on the intersection of disability and library work.

Note: The focus is on our concerns about the quality of the article and the editorial process that led to it being published as research – NOT on the author as a person.

In Brief

The authors of this letter are writing in regard to “Respecting Privacy of Thought in DEI Training,” an article published in the May 2025 issue of College & Research Libraries (CRL).

How did such an intellectually dishonest, poorly argued editorial get published in College & Research Libraries, a highly-regarded library journal? We will identify some of the most obvious problems within the text–problems that any competent editorial team should have addressed before publication. As part of this, we also ask: why did the editorial team not support this author in refining her argument before publishing it? Or alternatively, why did the editorial team not reject this article?

Full version

Reason for writing this letter

Despite approaching the article with curiosity, we quickly identified several issues which caused us considerable concern:

The author neglects to engage with other scholarly critiques of DEI in library literature.
The political bias is hidden.
The author appears to misunderstand or shallowly understand several of the cited sources.
Citations are spotty – while some arguments provide adequate citation, other arguments lack evidence.

We are members of what are often referred to as marginalized populations–we all have different disabilities, and many of us are also LGBTQ+ and/or BIPOC, etc. We have been dismayed by the recent dismantling of DEI initiatives, which is operating hand-in-hand with the dismantling of our civil rights. We are also very open to critiques of DEI programs – we and people like us have often been at the forefront of critiques about DEI programs in libraries, expressing concerns about tokenism, lack of follow-through, ineffective “one shot” style training models, prioritizing white feelings over the material conditions of Black and Indigenous people or people of color, to name a few (see References).

However, none of the many articles written by librarians articulating critiques of DEI initiatives are engaged in this article. Instead, the author focuses on engaging with a frankly odd mix of Wikipedia articles, shallowly analyzed law review articles and political theory books, and right-wing blog posts and media. We recognize that several of these right-wing media sources identify as libertarian and that Anglo-American style libertarianism often refers to itself as non-partisan, but that doesn’t mean it lacks an ideology (tone marker: neutral valence, see Roberts, 2025). Meanwhile, accusations of library DEI initiatives being “politically partisan” are made a few times, without evidence. (Note: no definition is provided for “politically partisan,” so we are working on the assumption that it refers to allegiance to a political party.)

Frankly, we are concerned by the use of recent far-right talking points to argue against DEI initiatives in libraries without an honest acknowledgement of the political stance the author is taking. To be clear, we are not objecting to the author having a political stance, we are objecting to hiding it. Among those of us drafting this letter, we do not share the same political beliefs about everything, we just share the expectation of honesty and academic integrity, so we can actually work through those disagreements in a productive and respectful way.

Even with the current work being done to dismantle DEI, civil rights, and higher education at the direction of one political party, we would also be among the first to question political partisanship in libraries. That is because none of the dominant political parties in English-speaking North America reliably support us (see Anyangwe and Okoh, 2023; Dhenin, 2025 for two recent examples of bipartisan legislation that causes active harm to disabled and other marginalized peoples).

However, whatever our feelings are about the author’s conclusions, what we’re really dismayed by is its failure to honestly engage with legitimate critiques of DEI initiatives in libraries. There are some elements of the piece that we may have agreed on, if they’d been presented with more academic rigor.

That leads us to wonder: How did such an intellectually dishonest, poorly argued editorial get published in College & Research Libraries, a highly-regarded library journal? We will identify some of the most obvious problems within the text – problems that any competent editorial team should have addressed before publication. As part of this, we also ask: why did the editorial team not support this author in refining her argument before publishing it? Or alternatively, why did the editorial team not reject this article?

Problems identified within the text

Because the errors in argumentation and the questionable citations are so rampant within this article, we are puzzled by its publication.

The article includes a lot of references. We wonder if that was required for it to be called research rather than a letter to the editor? In any case, it has resulted in a long list of cherry-picked, manipulatively quoted sources that support what the author wants to say. This piece does not demonstrate any honest engagement in ongoing conversations in the field or even the arguments made in the cited works.

Similarly, the author demonstrates limited understanding of the academic texts referenced. Some of the references are to right-wing blog posts. Note that we’re not condemning the use of blog posts or popular press books across the board, what we’re critical about here is the relative lack of academic citations and the lack of disclosure about the political biases of the rest of the sources that were used. When talking about DEI initiatives at a time when the US federal government is actively dismantling them, while simultaneously engaging in anti-Black, anti-immigrant, openly eugenicist, and anti-LGBTQ+ initiatives, this matters. The author does not clearly identify the partisan nature of many of her non-academic sources–partisan as in partial to an approach that is generally viewed in the US as right-leaning, is often critical of social justice causes, and in some cases openly advocates for the right to discriminate (e.g., Levy, 2016).

Here are a few sections that we have selected to highlight, just for demonstration. This is not an exhaustive exploration of all the weaknesses of this article.

Does not engage with other scholarly critiques of DEI in library literature

Tracking attendance at trainings is one new data point, especially where participation is required or assessed in performance reviews.¹¹⁰ DEI action plans, rubrics, “temperature checks,” climate surveys, equity audits, assessments of impacts, and so on, in aggregate contribute to shifting the library’s culture away from the academic and toward the bureaucratic.¹¹¹ The message they send to the library workers is that their own independent thoughts and autonomy in their jobs is secondary to data-collection tasks.

One example of decentralized, bottom-up control is known in the organizational management literature as “concertive control.” Under concertive control, organizations employ cross-functional and self-organizing teams.¹¹² Library DEI trainings, while potentially administratively sponsored, are often delegated to a team that is responsible for their content and that may also conduct the trainings. Library administrators will naturally delegate DEI training to those who are motivated and well-versed in the ideas. These trainings, and the teams that lead them, are a mechanism for non-hierarchical, concertive control over employees. Teams that do not have authority over library policy may be given wide latitude to develop trainings, especially when they can be based on profession-wide guidelines…. (p. 442)

The author has not engaged with any of the many and varied library articles about managerialism, workplace climate, library assessment, etc. The implication of this section appears to be that library administrators should not delegate DEI trainings, in fact should not be using concertive control to delegate anything, because to do so means they lose all responsibility and control. If this is indeed what readers are supposed to take from this section, we would have liked a clearer articulation of — everything, frankly. If the author is not arguing that library administrators should not delegate work, that raises even more questions. Also, again, if the author had wanted to build on arguments made previously by other librarians critiquing various management tendencies, we think that would have enhanced and clarified her argument.

Does not disclose political bias

While this sort of statement is not required, it matters for this discussion because we are talking about issues where people hold a wide range of conflicting values and beliefs, and the argument is presented as if it is coming from some sort of objective place.

Pretending that you can talk about race and racism from a place absent ideology is weird. But if you take the perspective of someone who doesn’t want to think or learn about racism, it starts making more sense.

The author praises the 2012 Diversity Standards for demonstrating “non-ideological language” while criticising the narrower focus of the 2022 Cultural Proficiencies for Racial Equity (p. 439). Shortly afterwards she claims that “…. imperialism and colonialism, mass incarceration, disparities in access to healthcare, the achievement gap in education, and disparate outcomes for “BIPOC populations.”⁹⁵ None of these topics has more than an indirect link to library work.” (p. 440) There is plenty of evidence out there identifying how each of these points connect to each other (see References). A good place to start looking is within the Cultural Proficiencies. This section provides one of many examples of the author pushing back specifically on training that requires attendees to learn about racism. We can’t help reach the conclusion that this is not an absence of ideology, this is a refusal to acknowledge one’s own.

Misunderstand or shallowly understood source material

Much of the article centers on the idea of privacy of thought, the author’s definition of which is:

Privacy of thought is an instinctively understood concept because everyone experiences it every day. Most would consider being forced to share private thoughts an invasion of privacy. In this way, the idea that privacy of thought should be considered a human right feels intuitively correct. How this intuition is reflected in society via laws and culture, however, is inseparable from the influence of Enlightenment ideas about how we understand individual liberty…. (p. 432)

The author then goes on to use various references to argue that freedom of thought is a universal value, followed by a reference to cognitive liberty. We assume that the author has done the internal work of synthesizing these concepts, and that’s why they’re presented in conflated form. However, that work is not replicated on page, so we as readers are confused about why these different terms are treated as interchangeable.

Also, nowhere in this section is an acknowledgment that the Farhany discussion about cognitive liberty is specifically in reference to tort law, the legal doctrine of avoidable consequences, and emotional distress injuries. This is a really different context than workplace DEI training. We recognize that a link could be made here, but the author did not actually make it – for us this raises the question about whether the author read and understood the source material. This is a rich enough area for investigation that she could have made a whole paper focused on this idea. Instead, the paper immediately moves on to mostly unsubstantiated claims about DEI trainings (almost exclusively focused on critiquing anti-racism trainings), with yet more under-explained theoretical frames added to the discussion. And as we observed earlier, there are articles published by librarians on these issues, none of which are engaged here.

When talking about a self-assessment conducted as part of a racial equity training, the author notes that:

“Even if your employer does not see your responses, these ninety-six questions are presumptuous and invasive. Asking about a person’s thoughts in this way violates privacy of thought…” (p. 435).

Is learning something new or considering new approaches an invasive violation of privacy? It seems absurd on its face. Is having to think about challenging things – not having to publicly disclose your thoughts, just having to think about them – a violation of privacy? What are the boundaries of this argument – is it only when people are expected to work towards ending racism that it becomes a violation? This is a really strange argument that none of us understand. There may be a sensible rationale behind this argument, but it needed to be explained within the article before publication.

Also the source referenced in the above excerpt was a right-wing/libertarian blog post, rather than a direct reference to the assessment tool itself or a first-hand account. It’s unclear whether the library worker quoted within that blog post had actually taken the assessment. It is possible that this blog post was writing about one employee who just didn’t like how the Inclusive Excellence frameworks were implemented at UVA. In other words, the author’s argument here relies on unclear secondhand information provided by one person.

This section included a side point that “(Suggesting a redirection back to race and racism here implies that other marginalized groups are not appropriate DEI topics.)” – but all the citations in this section are to anti-racism trainings. Asking people to stay on topic seems like a reasonable request for a training session. Even if one wants to make this point about DEI trainings in general, which some have (see References), to once again make the focus of the argument a pushback against anti-racism training is noticeable. Again, why did the editorial team not catch this? Spotting this problem does not even require anyone to dig into citations, it’s self-evident just from reading the text itself.

Next steps

We are asking for a public statement from the CRL board articulating how they will rectify this situation and make improvements to prevent a recurrence.

Problems identified:

The author neglects to engage with other scholarly critiques of DEI in library literature. There have been innumerable articles, books, and presentations that talk about DEI in relation to the concerns brought up in this article (e.g., assessment of DEI programs, managerialism, the tensions between intellectual freedom and social justice) but none of that body of research was used here.
Instead the author uses sources that broadly fall under the spectrum of political theory that, as demonstrated in the text, appear to be misunderstood or shallowly understood.
The citations provided are plentiful but poor in quality, including more wikipedia articles than library research articles. While some arguments provide adequate citation, other arguments lack evidence.
We all have biases. Pretending that we or the systems we work with don’t operate in biased ways does not erase those biases, it just prevents those biases from being acknowledged or addressed. This article talks about DEI in libraries while pretending at objectivity in its framing, but the arguments presented and the citations referenced demonstrate a clearly biased point of view that is never acknowledged.

Because of the degree and pervasiveness of the problems we identified as well as the potential negative impacts on the field if this article is taken at face value, we are asking CRL to retract this article. We would also like an explanation: how did this make it through editorial review? Is there a peer review process at CRL? Are you having subject experts conduct peer review? Are you outsourcing peer or editorial review to artificial intelligence?

References

Anyangwe, D. and Okoh, C. (2023). The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act: A dangerous new chapter in the war on Black youth. The Center for Law and Social Policy. https://www.clasp.org/publications/report/brief/the-bipartisan-safer-communities-act-a-dangerous-new-chapter-in-the-war-on-black-youth/

Courtland, S.D., Gaus, G. and Schmidtz, D. (2022). Liberalism. In Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2022 Edition). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/

Dhenin, M. (2025, May 9). Escalating anti-homeless policies fall hardest on disabled people in the US. Truthout. https://truthout.org/articles/escalating-anti-homeless-policies-fall-hardest-on-disabled-people-in-the-us/

Joint ALA/ARL Building Cultural Proficiencies for Racial Equity Framework Task Force. (2022). Cultural proficiencies for racial equity: A framework [White paper]. ALA. https://www.ala.org/pla/initiatives/edi/racialequityframework

Levy, R.A. (2016). Libertarianism and the right to discriminate. CATO Institute Policy Report. https://www.cato.org/policy-report/march/april-2016/libertarianism-right-discriminate#

Roberts, W.C. (2025). Ideology. In Zalta & Nodelman (Eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2025 Edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ideology/#ValIde

(see References) note: We had originally referenced the work of respected librarian-scholars who’ve published research in this area. However, because we value them so much, and because we recognize the risk of speaking out publicly like this, we decided not to publish their names. Those new to this sort of work may not know the history of librarians doing DEI work being targeted by harassment campaigns and death threats – especially women of color – but those of us who have been around for a few decades don’t want to see that happen again.

Institutional and Departmental Diversity Statements

Your institution probably has a diversity or DEI (diversity, equity, & inclusion) statement. Take a minute and go read it, even if you’ve seen it before. Now check the diversity statements of a few other institutions; they’re pretty similar, aren’t they?

This is not a bad thing. The purpose of an institutional diversity statement is mostly symbolic: to publicly state support for DEIA initiatives and make members of marginalized groups know that the institution is paying attention and working to be better. The statements you just read probably accomplish these goals.

But they’re vague, aren’t they? That’s okay. If your institution is really on top of things, you might also find a diversity strategic plan (or maybe DEIA efforts are incorporated into the general strategic plan). If you take a look at one of those, you’ll see more specific – but still institution-wide – information about how the goals of the statement are meant to be achieved.

(Also, I know I’m making some broad generalizations. I’ve been working on a project which has involved reading a lot of diversity statements, so I know they aren’t all the same… Take a look at my own institution’s statement here; the bullet points have the specificity usually reserved for a diversity strategic plan.)

I say all this to get around to this point: While you and your library are beholden to the institutional diversity statement, that doesn’t mean it should be the only one you use for guidance. I am here to encourage you to create a library diversity statement, assuming you don’t already have one. (If you do: well done! Keep up the good work. Continue reading to see why you’re awesome.)

After reading so many institutional diversity statements that say pleasant but admittedly bland things about what the institution wants to be with regards to DEIA matters, I have decided that they don’t say much at all. It’s like if Dasani started putting “gluten-free!” on its labels… all the other brands of bottled water would have to do it too, so it wouldn’t seem like they had gluten in their bottled water. An institution needs a diversity statement to make it clear that they don’t support oppression and prejudice. (What a world we live in.)

I think the role of the departmental diversity statement, though, is more practical. It’s more like the diversity strategic plan, because it can get more specific. A library’s diversity statement can refer to the accessibility of library spaces, diversifying the collection of resources, and other library-specific concerns. Other departments would address different specifics: the library wouldn’t address the cultural diversification and dietary needs compliance of the menu in a cafeteria, but dining services would.

Additionally, a departmental diversity statement gets the people in that department more involved. The vast majority of people at an institution had nothing to do with the writing, editing, and approval of the institutional diversity statement. They feel less connected to it because it was made elsewhere, by others, and they probably first saw it in an email announcing its implementation. While I like our statement, I don’t feel involved in it. The library’s diversity statement feels closer to me. It feels like the difference between seeing your state and your city being mentioned on national news. I hear, “In Pennsylvania,” and I pay slightly more than average attention; I hear “In Hershey,” and my ears really perk up. That closer connection creates more buy-in from the individuals in the department.

In that same vein, a departmental diversity statement can take a different tone or voice than the institutional statement. Go back up and read the Penn State statement again, then read our libraries’ statement. The libraries’ statement has a stronger upstanding, more active tone. It is a call to action, while the institutional statement is a description of what the university would like to be: both important, compatible, but different approaches to the same goal. I see in the libraries’ statement a fist held high in the air, and in the university’s statement, open and welcoming arms.

If your library does not yet have a departmental diversity statement, I encourage you to advocate for one. You can make concrete the abstract intentions of your institution’s diversity statement, lend the library’s unique voice to the conversation, and put a “gluten-free!” sticker on the bottled water that is your library.