In Brief

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s racist “Native American” mascot, Chief Illiniwek, has lingered on campus since the ban by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in 2007.  Since that time, there have been numerous attempts to either embrace no mascot or find a new non-racist one. And yet, upper level administration has never committed to either one of these options, thereby leaving not only both options open, but also the idea that the racist mascot could return. This article speaks to the cultural context of the harm that racism and colonialism cause for Indigenous peoples that they encounter in institutions of higher education, including libraries. This article also contains considerations for administrators and other library employees to understand this context. Possible actionable items are provided to assist libraries in achieving more effective employment and service provisions for Indigenous people.

Introduction

Many of us are librarians because we have a strong service orientation. We often place great value on seeking information that enables us to enhance our service to one of our many constituencies. In addition to patrons and communities, employees are also a valuable constituency for the larger institution of any library. In my ensuing discussion, I hope to illuminate a non-comprehensive set of actionable takeaways to enhance service to Indigenous people and to Indigenous communities. My recommendations are foundational and meant to be built upon. Inasmuch as this may serve as a call to action, I prioritize listening to Indigenous communities and voices first and foremost and believing those voices when they tell us how to improve our practice and engagement. 

Because In the Library with the Lead Pipe encourages self-reflection on positionality, I need to acknowledge that my own library experience as an employee is centered in academic libraries. As such, my recommendations are focused on academic libraries. Some recommendations are applicable in other contexts, though I would be remiss if I did not honor the many other types of libraries that serve Indigenous people and communities with all due apologies where my examples are too academic-centric. For a comprehensive history of tribal libraries see Littletree, 2018. For Indigenous use of public libraries and fans of exemplary methodology, see Burke, 2007. For an example of medical library engagement, see Kouame and Hewkapuge, 2016. 

This is partially a story of my own cowardice and partially a cautionary tale about employee retention, but perhaps more importantly, it is a story of institutional cultural ineptitude. In October 2017, a group of protestors, mostly students, blocked a vehicle that was transporting Chancellor Robert J. Jones and his wife, Dr. Lynn Hassan Jones, MD, who were participating in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) homecoming parade. Chancellor Jones started as the Chancellor of UIUC at the same time as my own employment with the University Library. The protestors were calling upon Chancellor Jones to take action on the Chief Illiniwek mascot, who was officially retired in 2007, with no new mascot being chosen at that time. The lack of a new mascot created a vacuum, an open wound that refused to be healed for all involved. Some have lobbied to retain Chief Illiniwek as a matter of honor and tradition, while others have lobbied to appoint a new mascot in order to close one chapter and open a new one.  

As of this writing, there is still no new mascot to replace Chief Illiniwek, despite the fact that a new mascot has been proposed and has broad support from students and from those who want a definitive end to a long-lingering controversy. With students again taking the lead, in 2019, then-undergraduate student Spencer Hulsey proposed the belted kingfisher bird (Anghel and Isaf, 2020).

As is often the case, today’s students are envisioning a horizon of positive opportunities to end a problematic controversy and choose a more unifying mascot. Unfortunately, the current senior administration of the UIUC campus, and the current Board of Trustees for the University of Illinois system, are too focused on the next step in front of them to understand what the horizon may offer. While I do not endorse their view and their behavior, I am also guilty of the same inability to project beyond the immediate step in front of me.

I have noted that my employment with UIUC started in tandem with Chancellor Jones’ employment. The Chancellor’s position is one of considerable positional power. My own position carries far less. However, my employment was also an opportunity for me. It came with the financial benefits of more money than I had been making. It also opened many doors for career growth and development. The University Library at UIUC is a well-respected, large, research library. Multiple library employees have accrued international respect within their areas of expertise. As promised when I interviewed, my employment at the University Library afforded me opportunities for professional development and growth that would have otherwise remained unavailable to me. I was also fortunate to participate in the continued growth of one of the preeminent library collections in the world.

Being only a year into my employment, I remained aloof from the 2017 homecoming protest and of any criticism of the Chief Illiniwek mascot. It would be an easy and self-absolving exercise to point fingers at others, including Chancellor Jones. I could lament the failure to implement a new mascot and pepper this discussion with snarky barbs and dismissive remarks that imply a failure on the part of Chancellor Jones, the broader senior administration of UIUC, and of the Board of Trustees. But that would be a failure on my part to acknowledge my own complicit efforts of self-preservation and self-benefit. While I do worry that the senior administration and Board of Trustees have prioritized financial benefits over integrity, I have also done the same. At no point did I stand arm-in-arm with any student protestors. At no point have I reached out to the Chancellor, nor to anyone else, to champion a new mascot.

American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians (Indigenous people of the United States, abbreviated throughout as Indigenous people) often exist in relationship to their generational obligations. I cannot speak for all 574 federally recognized tribes of the United States. I can state that many of us are rooted in cultures of generational obligation. The nations of the Haudenosaunee confederation have a core value called the Seventh generation (Haudenosaunee Confederacy, n.d.). At a foundational level, this means stewarding and preserving land, resources, knowledge, and culture for the next seven generations. It is also a value that reflects the commitment to make decisions, and to take actions that are not exclusive to the current generation, but that also yield benefits for future generations. This same value is shared by many Indigenous people and is a strong personal value that guides my own personal and professional moral code. For a discussion that is rich in both scholarship and poetic sensibility rooted in an ecological context, see LaDuke and Cowen, 2020. 

At a more holistic level, however, the Seventh generation value is more than a call to serve future generations. The principle of generational obligation extends across all generations. We honor our Ancestors who came before us, out of gratitude for all they have done for us. We honor our living Elders for the wisdom they share and the stewardship they have provided. We also honor and serve those who will come after us, to the seventh generation and beyond.  Indigenous people often carry a commitment to honor the gift of the past and to preserve the gift of the future. It is this value that I have violated for too long.

Both in 2017 and beyond, I became too enamored of protecting my personal privilege and position. While I was not in a tenure-track faculty position, I did hold a position that was more rewarding on multiple fronts than any previous position I had held, including pay. Because of this, I deferred on my obligation to stand with, and on behalf of, the younger generations who engaged in active protest and problem-solving. I both admired and envied the students and other protestors who remained true to their core values. I worried too much that engaging with a controversial topic would harm my employment. Thus, this article is as much a reflection on that failure as it is an indictment of anyone else. Now that the hardest work has been done by younger generations, at long last, I must take ownership of my own responsibilities and endorse the work that they have done.

Discussion

This article is ostensibly about Indigenous mascots, an issue that exists within the context of Indigenous people in the United States. I confess to not being aware whether or not such issues of sports mascots extend to other Indigenous communities around the world. Now is a fair time to disclose that the discussion of issues around Indigenous mascots serves as both an end unto itself as well as a springboard into a broader understanding of serving and working with libraries’ Indigenous employees and patrons. Non-Indigenous people are happy to ascribe mascots generally, and Indigenous mascots specifically, as symbols with many proposed purposes. Indeed, some libraries have put school mascots to good use promoting information literacy, such as the University of Idaho (Henrich and Prorak, 2010). This is a reclamation project of sorts. I seek here to reframe mascots as symbols that speak to Indigenous identity and the lived experiences of Indigenous employees and patrons.

Many non-Indigenous people want a compelling answer to the question of why mascots are offensive. Of primary importance to those questioning the matter is an effort to quantify the degree of offense. It is as if “harm” must be measured against a quantitative scale, and mascots simply do not achieve a high enough reading to warrant consideration. Many Indigenous individuals are often subjected to accidental participation in discussions where non-Indigenous people split hairs and dissect the degree of offense inherent in any given mascot. “Well, that case over there is clearly pejorative and offensive, but in this case, is it really that bad?” While it may be an admirable intention to understand, it largely misses the point. I cannot speak for all American Indians, Indigenous individuals or other Indigenous communities. I can speak only to my individual lived experience as a citizen of the sovereign Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma. I cannot even speak for the Muscogee Nation any more than a lone individual can speak for any other entire nation. The American Indian Studies Program has a webpage listing “…organizations who have made resolutions and statements against the use of Indian mascots” (Mascot Resolutions). This list of resolutions does include the Peoria Tribe of Oklahoma, descendants of a group of tribes known as the Illiniwek (Peoria Resolution).

For me it is so fundamental that I am unsure why additional hair-splitting and rubrics are necessary to articulate the level of offense. In short, an entire group of people are stating that their lived experiences are being devalued, dehumanized, and disrespected. Yet, somehow, when matters pertain to Indigenous peoples, it is bewildering to others that we would want to be treated with fundamental respect and human dignity. Should that not be enough? Should it not be the case that “We find that this behavior undermines our fundamental human dignity” serves as a statement of power and value sufficient to inform the conversation? Above all else, those who cling to Indigenous mascots so often seem to do so out of a determined animosity of persistence as much as anything else. For a solid academic treatment of these issues, see Haudenosaunee author Taylor, 2015. 

To be fair to nuance, an example of a university that does maintain a relationship with a tribal government is Florida State University and the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Florida State’s webpage about its relationship with the Seminole Tribe of Florida states, “FSU does not have a mascot, but rather a symbol that we respect and honor,” in reference to Osceola and Renegade (Florida State University). Florida State does not identify a relationship with the Great Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. As an article from the Oklahoman clarifies, not all Seminole individuals have shared opinions (Tramel, 2011). Writing for FSUnews in 2020, Matty Mendez provides a concise yet reflective consideration of this issue as an FSU student (Mendez, 2020). Even the imprimatur of tribal endorsement does not ensure a lack of opposition.

For those such as myself who take issue with Indigenous mascots it is because I and others are often forced to listen to discourses of condescension that seek to clarify for me that I do not understand how these are matters of honor and tradition. Quoting from the Honor the Chief Society website: “In the years following the controversial NCAA decision, stories began to emerge detailing the efforts of anti-imagery hate groups at Universities across the nation.” (Honor the Chief). Why is it that honor and tradition that has roots over centuries is somehow discarded and swept away by institutions that are, by comparison, barely toddlers in the grand arch of lived experiences on the American continents? There may be many reasons why this is the case; presumably one reason is that colonialist institutional traditions matter and colonized traditions do not.

This subordination of colonized people and their cultures, values and yes, traditions, is a core problem of offensive Indigenous mascots. The refusal to acknowledge and honor the culture and values of colonized people is a dissolution of self-sufficiency and autonomy. In other words, offensive Indigenous mascots contribute to the erosion of Indigenous sovereignty. “Sovereignty” can be a broad term that operates as a kind of synonym for self-sufficiency, including at the individual level of Indigenous employees and patrons. In this context, it is worth noting that “sovereignty” is also a real and tangible consideration for the tribal nations of which Indigenous people are citizens, for those tribal nations are sovereign nations by matter of treaty rights with the United States government.

Sovereignty is a legal reality. Quoting from the Bureau of Indian Affairs website, “…federally recognized tribes are recognized as possessing certain inherent rights of self-government (i.e., tribal sovereignty)…” (What Is a Federally Recognized Tribe? | Indian Affairs, n.d.).  As of this writing, there are 574 federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribes and villages. There are also tribal nations with state-level recognition, but not federal, as well as those nations that sovereign tribal nations recognize as also being sovereign nations, even if the U.S. federal government has chosen not to establish and maintain government-to-government relations with same-said nations. Hitting close to home, my own nation, the Muscogee Nation, was at the center of a 2020 Supreme Court case, McGirt vs. Oklahoma. While authored by a legal scholar, Maggie Blackhawk’s analysis of the case is accessible enough for lay readers to get a sense of the scope of complexity surrounding sovereignty in a legal context (Blackhawk, 2020).

Sovereignty is a rich topic warranting several disciplinary academic publications to address, both legal and otherwise. This article is not concerned with the litany of legal and scholarly references that might otherwise abound. Rather, the emphasis here is understanding that sovereignty both exists and is of critical importance to Indigenous communities and individuals as a key first step in engagement. The inherent rights of sovereignty also underscore that indigenous mascots are offensive because those mascots are a means of hijacking the self-determination that is part and parcel of sovereignty. The unwillingness of those who cling to Indigenous mascots is more than a commitment to tradition. This refusal is also a denial to Indigenous people of the basic rights of self-determination.  It is this beginning of the spiral into dehumanization that is so problematic.

Even if the process of dehumanization inherent in the racism of Indigenous mascots were only a matter of violations of respect, that should still be enough to take the issue seriously. However, the consequences to Indigenous people do not stop with a violation of respect. There are more sinister implications for Indigenous people that extend from the general dehumanization of our existence. Health disparities, in particular, provide an example in high relief.  

The Indian Health Services lists a number of mortality disparities. These disparities include higher rates of heart disease, substance abuse, suicides, and more. Indigenous people also experience higher rates of homicide and violence (Disparities | Fact Sheets, 2013). Indigenous women and girls, in particular, experience violence at a disproportionate rate that is alarming and horrifying (Violence Against American Indian and Alaska Native Women and Men | National Institute of Justice, n.d.). 

The Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) crisis is too often overlooked by mainstream media and the broader public. A higher regard for Indigenous people might go a long way in raising awareness of MMIWG and, in turn, improve resources and interventions to protect Indigenous lives. A 2016 study by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) found that more than four in five American Indian and Alaska Native women (84.3 percent) have experienced violence in their lifetime, including 56.1 percent who have experienced sexual violence. There is also a crisis of case follow-up for reports of MMIWG. The Urban Indian Health Institute’s report, “Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women & Girls: A Snapshot of Data,” opens by highlighting two compelling statistics: 5,712 cases of MMIWG were reported in 2016 with only 116 of those cases being logged in the Department of Justice database. It also quotes a statistic from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention that the third-leading cause of death for American Indian and Alaska Native women is murder.  

Other statistics include those from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Rates are broken out in a table by “White,” “Black,” “Hispanic,” “Asian/Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander” and the incredibly helpful “Other” category (Violent Victimization by Race or Hispanic Origin, 2008–2021 | Bureau of Justice Statistics, n.d.). Indigenous people are often included in a category that might be labeled as “other,” “unknown,” or, as CNN famously reported on 2020 Presidential voting statistics, “Something Else” (KTOO, 2020).

This is not an effort to make a case of causation, nor to suggest that the existence of Indigenous mascots leads to health disparities, increases in suicide, and increases in violence, murder, and human trafficking. It is the case that many Indigenous people see in mascots the perpetuation of dehumanization and an implication that we are somehow a subspecies of humankind.  For those who argue that Indigenous mascots are symbols of honor and tradition, this is the counterpoint. For many Indigenous people, mascots are symbols, though not symbols of honor and tradition. Rather, they are symbols of the endorsement of dehumanization and subspeciation of Indigenous people. It is also the case that this same lesser-than valuation of Indigenous lives is also enmeshed in the kinds of disparities that are much larger and complex issues of access to health and wellbeing, to the justice system, and to the information resources that enable individuals and communities to access and leverage these and the benefits of other societal infrastructures.

What are the takeaways for libraries?  The key takeaway is understanding that Indigenous employees serve in your libraries and that Indigenous patrons are part of your service population. While it may not be possible to steer the broader institution or society, it is possible to act in an informed manner to provide more inclusive and welcoming spaces for Indigenous employees and patrons. (For a Canadian perspective on both de-colonizing library spaces and a succinct assessment of Indigenous library employees, see Edwards, 2019. For an overview of Indigenous students and academic libraries, see Bucy, 2022.)

Actionable Ideas

Awareness

Most academic libraries are not specifically part of institutions that maintain a problematic mascot, but some institutions still have active racist mascots. Others have ostensibly retired mascots but have eschewed the kind of senior administrative integrity and commitment to moral and ethical honor to fill a vacuum of no mascot. UIUC comes to mind as an institution where senior university administrators can still only muster enough integrity to engage in hand-wringing staged confusion about why a subspecies of Indigenous almost-people would want to be treated with dignity and respect. However, for those of you who do not have a current problematic mascot, you certainly have people who work for your institution and library, are served by your institution and library, and are guests of your institution and library, that encounter mascots in K-12 schools and professional sports. Your institution and library may be in either geographic proximity or in partnership with some of these institutions, or may encounter alumni or fans of professional sports teams that identify with problematic mascots.This is not a call to action for library administrators to stage open protests as a matter of course in your institutional obligations. Rather, as has been emphasized already, knowing that you have Indigenous employees, patrons, and guests is a key contribution in its own right. Know the sovereign nations that are acknowledged in your land acknowledgement. Also know those sovereign nations that are part of your institutional and library constituencies.

Knowing when you have sovereign governments as part of your geographic community is both a critical first step for engagement and, one would hope, a fundamental point of awareness for senior administrators and leaders, both within the library and beyond. What the particulars of this awareness mean is rather beside the point. Knowing that you may share proximity to a sovereign nation would seem to be a matter of an informed administration, as most institutions of higher education tend not to embrace willful ignorance. To spell it out, a lack of awareness of tribal institutions near your institution does constitute such a willful ignorance that can be and is easy to remedy. It is this key point about willful ignorance that is underscored for our current purposes.

Land acknowledgements

Many libraries can repurpose a land acknowledgement that has been created by the larger institution. Libraries that seek to engage with the land acknowledgement more fully can adapt the institutional land acknowledgement or create their own. Arizona State University Library has such a land acknowledgement, as one example (Indigenous Land Acknowledgement | ASU Library, n.d.).

Land acknowledgements may not be embraced even by all Indigenous people. See, for example, Robinson, 2019. At least one reason for this is that these can become both performative and hollow. If your institution has a land acknowledgement and if your library chooses to create your own land acknowledgement, it is worth having an intentional conversation. When and for what purposes will you use your land acknowledgement?  

In addition to posting on your library website, a deliberate and employee-engaged agreement about when and how to read and share your land acknowledgment may go a long way in staving off the awkward performative experience that sometimes accompanies land acknowledgements. This does not need to be a universal consensus. Discussions within departments and units or within employee representation groups may have to serve these purposes, as happens with other topics for which there is not a straightforward technical solution. Even communicating a justification as shared knowledge may be beneficial. In addition, intentional silence before and after the land acknowledgement can mark the sharing of the land acknowledgement with reflection and solemnity. This need not be an extensive time.  However, a rushed and compulsory reading is not going to leave anyone feeling ennobled, empowered, or affirmed. If your library cannot achieve the kind of tone a land acknowledgement deserves, skipping it is probably preferable to a hasty reading that smacks of rote obligation and performativity. Reading the land acknowledgement as though you are reading it to honored Indigenous guests and to honored Indigenous hosts of a sovereign nation will serve you well because you are in fact reading it to a sovereign nation.  

The value of a land acknowledgement, and the reading of said acknowledgement, can serve as the counterbalance to the experience of mascots for Indigenous employees and patrons. Just as the mascot can leave your Indigenous employees, patrons, and other Indigenous guests of the library feeling overlooked, undervalued, and marginalized, a sincere land acknowledgement can recognize that you welcome Indigenous people, our Ancestors, our living Elders, and that you affirm your awareness that we still exist, live with you, work with you, and that we are in your service population.  

Partnerships and collaboration

For institutions that have a specific scope of programs, are private institutions, or otherwise are not a natural fit for partnering with tribal governments and tribal institutions, there is good news. A key piece of advice is that you probably should not force an engagement strategy for the sake of having one. If a partnership with a sovereign tribal nation is not a natural fit for your institution, it will be unlikely to be so for the sovereign tribal nation and community.

If you are a public institution, especially a land grant institution, hold relevant collections, or otherwise have an impetus for a partnership, treat those as any other partnership. For best practice, ask yourselves first what you can offer or contribute by doing work within your library or institution that benefits the partnership as much as possible. In short, avoid extractive partnerships that are created for the purposes of a social media post or a seemingly impressive line in an annual report. Too often, tribal communities or experts are flooded with requests, many of which take time and effort, and contribute no value to the community or individual on the other end of the proposed partnership.  

You also do not need to approach Indigenous communities and individuals as though everything is shrouded in sage smoke and mirrors. The people driving the partnerships you seek, or are cultivating, are individuals, familiar with the contemporary world and active professionals and experts. This may be a personal aggravation in being asked “how do I engage with tribal communities,” and having to answer, “Did you send a respectful introductory email or make a phone call?” The vast majority of the time, that is the ideal first step. From there, the person or people with whom you are interacting are able to let you know what they need and expect from you as readily as you are able to do with any other colleague, expert, or organizational partner.

Collections

Consider buying materials relevant to your library user populations, including Indigenous communities and people. This is not a call to buy any and all collections materials available.  The same collection development principles guiding any collections apply here. An easy example might include juvenile literature collections and language collections. All academic libraries collect within parameters that fit their long-term and local needs. To repeat a recurring theme, be aware of those Indigenous communities that are most likely to use your library and buy materials that support whatever patron needs make sense. If you have Indigenous scholars, students, or public visitors, do you have materials that are relevant for their research, curricular, and reading needs? 

For practical application, joining the American Indian Library Association or attending the International Conference on Indigenous Archives, Libraries, and Museums hosted by the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, & Museums are great options. Observing Indigenous Peoples’ Day or programming for Native American Heritage Month are opportunities to solicit feedback from Indigenous patrons utilizing the same mechanisms to solicit input from any other patron. Both Tulsa City-Count Library and LA County Library have American Indian Resource Centers. This is not to suggest that every library needs such a center, but investigating their collections resources and programming can inspire scalable approaches.

On that front, a note on special collections is warranted here. Where you hold special collections that are Indigenous materials, encourage and rely on your special collections experts. If they seek further training on topics such as repatriation or the appropriate use of Traditional Knowledge labels (TK Labels – Local Contexts, n.d.) administrators can provide the same level of professional development funding and time allocations as for any other area of professional practice. If you hold materials that a tribal community is more than happy for you to hold, but those materials can benefit researchers, experts, and community members, an outreach and engagement strategy can be implemented as with any other community who might be a stakeholder in your collections. In the United States, Arizona State University’s Labriola Data Center is by far the standard-bearer for best practices for incorporating professional principles for both libraries and archives. For an initial overview of the literature on Indigenous collections in both libraries and archives, see Reijerkerk and Nyitray, 2022. 

If you do have materials that are sensitive in nature, this is another area where established professional practice will serve you well. Your special collections staff, be they archivists or rare books experts, are well-acquainted with materials that are sensitive in nature or may need access restrictions in place. If it is critical for you to know why those restrictions need to be in place, letting the impacted Indigenous communities and individuals lead that discussion is an effective strategy to show respect. In some instances, knowing that restrictions are necessary is and should be sufficient. If a tribal Elder or expert tells you that some materials need to be restricted and that they cannot get into detailed explanations as to why, believing them is really all that is required of your special collections professionals. It bears reiterating that sensitive and restricted materials have long-existed in special collections and your staff either know the protocols or know where to seek professional development. Working with Indigenous communities and individuals is not so distinct from established professional practices that fear of engagement should inhibit said engagement.

To contextualize this, we can look to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)  Because NAGPRA so often involves objects, this might be more familiar to museum professionals. But libraries and archives are also impacted by NAGPRA. The discussion above is not to imply that professionals disregard NAGPRA. Rather, it is to state that if your collections are impacted by NAGPRA, your professional staff should and do know this.  Placing confidence and trust in both the Indigenous communities and in your own professionals is the takeaway here. What is not acceptable is fretting that Indigenous materials are steeped in such mystery and otherness that the library and archives avoid engagement with these materials and these communities.

Conclusion

While an editorial for academic library employees is far from a brave stand as an activist, this article is the beginning of an effort to reclaim my responsibilities to other Indigenous people. It is also an effort to remediate the cowardice I initially showed in failing to stand with, and on behalf of, braver students who have led the protests and calls for a new mascot at UIUC. It is a weak beginning, but a beginning nevertheless.

The opening statement also indicated that this is a cautionary tale of retention. Library administrators are often concerned about retention of employees, especially “diversity” employees. There are also times when library administrators may be content for a certain amount of healthy turnover. In my own case, I am not the one who can assess nor articulate if my leaving Illinois is a matter of failed retention or a win for the University Library overall. However, the cautionary tale here is that it is possible to lose employees because of the broader institutional environment.  

Ultimately, I took to heart the message that was sent to me loudly and clearly by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I am neither welcomed nor wanted there. This was the ultimate message I took away from the unresolved mascot controversy. At best, I served as a token hire.  At worst, I was a necessary evil to fill a gap. What I did decide is that I was neither valued nor welcomed at Illinois. Is this the University Library’s fault? I do not think the University Library is responsible for turning the tide on larger institutional controversies.

However, the willingness of library administrators and employees to address and redress such controversies and issues is within the hands of any library.  As we find ourselves in a time of attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, this is a call to understand the problem as more than a Band-Aid issue. It is also more than a general, theoretical question about blandly stated commitments to diversity recruitment. It is a moment for all of ourselves to ask, “Am I doing what I can do to make sure employees, students, researchers, and visitors all feel welcome in my library, or am I clinging to cowardice to preserve my own comfort?”  

As a department head myself in my current role, I am confronted with having to change course.  I was not in a leadership position of any kind in 2017, hierarchically speaking. However, the failure to embrace leadership was not a failure of the nature of my position at the time. It was my own failure to support those who were doing the harder work of long-term thinking and planning. Fortunately, university students will continue to believe they really can change the course of history and the world. The current student generations will always achieve these goals. We can either be privileged to participate or obstinate enough to be a negative footnote to their efforts.  

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Acknowledgements

I offer much gratitude to reviewers Jane Nichols and Ian Beilin for insightful comments and for going as far as to suggest possible additions for citations. I was happy to incorporate these. I also appreciate the sincerity and close reading that both have provided. I also thank Jaena Rae Cabrera and the editorial board and the flexibility even when I missed a key deadline.

I owe one final acknowledgement:

There exists a mighty oak tree who has nurtured many acorns to grow. This article is one of the seeds sown by said oak tree.

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