SRRT (Social Responsibilities Round Table)

Statement on the ALA's Complicity and the Crisis Within SRRT: Gaza, Free Expression, and the Struggle for the Soul of Librarianship

In the wake of the 2025 ALA Annual Conference in Philadelphia, it is time to speak plainly.

The American Library Association-the largest and most visible professional body of librarians in the United States-has failed in its responsibility to uphold the basic principles of intellectual freedom, social justice, and international solidarity. At a moment when Gaza is being reduced to ash-its libraries incinerated, its schools and universities shattered, its cultural memory under siege-the Association's Council issued no public statement of condemnation, no resolution in defense of a people's right to exist, learn, preserve, and dream.

But even more disturbing than this silence is the way it was enforced.

Efforts to pass even modest resolutions were systematically blocked. An initial resolution, cautiously crafted to protest the wave of campus repression targeting pro-Palestine student protests in the United States, was rewritten into vague generalities. When some of us sought to restore its original, urgent focus, we were met with aggressive procedural maneuvering within the Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT)-a body once regarded as the conscience of ALA. An Executive Board representative, whose presence in that meeting was questionable at best, seemed to act as an enforcer of institutional discipline. Attempts to reintroduce a version of the campus protest resolution were shut down. No debate. No deliberation. Just suppression.

Undeterred, some of us moved forward with a new resolution-this one directly calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza and the devastation of Palestinian cultural and civic life. What followed was a moment that should trouble every librarian who still believes this profession has a soul. The chair of SRRT denounced the resolution's proponents in open session, accusing them of bullying, threatening behavior, and divisiveness simply for raising the issue of Gaza at all. The mover of the resolution, me,r ose and left the meeting, followed by aseveral ran-and-file members, some long-time ALA and SRRT activists, some new student members, while the resolution was never seriously considered. The conversation was, in effect,  shut down.

This is more than a moral failure. It is a betrayal of SRRT's own founding vision: to be a radical, internationalist, justice-centered current within librarianship, willing to speak truth even when uncomfortable, even when unpopular. What we witnessed instead was the use of bureaucratic procedures, personal attacks, and institutional fear to silence those attempting to act on principle.

To say nothing is to be complicit. To silence others trying to say something is worse.

The destruction in Gaza is not abstract. It is physical and cultural annihilation. It is the bombing of libraries. The targeting of schools. The murder of children. And it is enabled, sustained, and sanitized by institutions here in the U.S.-including the academy, the press, and yes, professional bodies like ours. At the same time, those who speak out-students, faculty, library workers-face unprecedented repression. This is a crisis not just of conscience but of practice.

And so, we say this:

SRRT must change or be reclaimed. It must break from its current role as a compliant adjunct to the Executive Board and return to its rightful place as a site of resistance and moral clarity. The librarians who built SRRT did so to stand against war, racism, and empire. Those values are not obsolete. They are urgent. If the current leadership cannot or will not defend them, then the membership must.

We call on all librarians of conscience-inside SRRT or outside it, still active or long disaffected-to come together, organize, and begin again. Begin again to assert that the defense of memory is a political act. That neutrality in the face of repression is not professionalism but cowardice. That our work means nothing if it does not serve those who are being silenced, dispossessed, and destroyed.