The former Librarian of Congress abruptly fired by President Donald Trump has found a new position with the country's largest philanthropic supporter of the arts.
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation exclusively told The Associated Press that Carla Hayden will join the humanities grantmaker Monday as a senior fellow whose duties will include advising on efforts to advance public knowledge through libraries and archives.
The year-long post places Hayden back at the center of the very debates over American culture that surrounded her dismissal. The White House ousted Hayden , the first woman and the first African American to hold the title, after she was accused of promoting "radical" literary material by a conservative advocacy group seeking to squash Trump opposition within the federal government.
Hayden acknowledged existing threats to "the free exchange of ideas" in a statement to the AP.
"For generations, libraries, archives, and cultural institutions have been the guardians of knowledge and the catalysts for human progress," she said. "Together, we will work to strengthen the public knowledge ecosystem and ensure that the transformative power of information remains accessible to all."