The Law Office of Stephanie Adams has received many inquiries related to recent presidential actions by Donald Trump upon his return to the White House. Our team behind the Empire State Library Network’s Ask the Lawyer service has expeditiously produced a summary and analysis of executive orders, memoranda, and proclamations issued during the first week of the second Trump term, to explain how they may affect libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, and other educational and cultural institutions in New York State.
This guidance is available from the Ask the Lawyer “Recently Asked Questions” database, maintained by the Western New York Library Resources Council (WNYLRC) at the following permalink: https://wnylrc.org/raq/summary-and-analysis-potential-impact-january-2025-potus-executive-orders-libraries-served-esln
WNYLRC has also published our answer to an academic library’s question on how to respond to immigration enforcement actions and requests. Takeaways include that library user information is confidential under New York State law and is illegal to disclose without a duly executed subpoena, court order, or a waiver signed by the library user, unless such disclosure is required for library operations (for example, reporting destruction of library property). The answer includes a New York academic librarians’ guide to responding to library user information requests, which college and university librarians can post in their libraries.
Another answer related to recent presidential actions, this one for a library system with a diversity internship, is available from WNYLRC as “Evaluating DEI Internship” programs. In it, Stephanie Adams writes that “initiatives to either bring a great diversity of experience and social connections into the workforce, and/or to address the quantifiable impacts of past wrongs, should be tailored to meet specific objectives.” She gives two examples of internship programs, complete with application questions and rubrics to evaluate if the programs are meeting their goals.