The Vancouver Community Library on July 10, 2025.
Erik Neumann / OPB
The Fort Vancouver Regional Libraries board removed references to equity from the district’s strategic plan at a contentious meeting Monday night.
A board member resigned after the vote, which followed a heated debate over intellectual freedom at a time when “diversity, equity and inclusion” policies have come under growing scrutiny.
The board meeting focused on whether to keep phrases about “equitable access” and “intellectual freedom” in the plan that will guide the library district for the next five years.
The plan has been under review for 10 months. Recently, some board members have said terms about equity and intellectual freedom should be replaced with more neutral language in the plan’s mission, vision and priorities, in order to avoid politicized terms.
After hearing dozens of public comments over nearly three hours of discussion, the board of trustees could not agree on whether to keep the equity language or approve the updates that would remove it.
Nearly all public comments during Monday’s meeting were in support of keeping “equitable access” and “intellectual freedom” in the strategic plan.
Likewise, a library staff report noted that over 80% of earlier public comments also supported retaining the equity language.
“The idea that the word ‘equity’ is divisive isn’t supported by the community surveys this board itself commissioned,” resident James Watson-Hughes said during public comment. “We can’t dismiss that data in favor of small samples of anecdotal conversations simply because the word makes some people feel uncomfortable.”
Late in the meeting, the board disregarded that input.
Trustee Irina Kakorina proposed a new change to the strategic plan language that community members had not been able to read.
Kakorina said she had shared her proposal with the board 10 days earlier, but it had not been included in the public meeting documents.
The change removes “We champion equitable access” from the strategic plan mission statement, replacing it with “We open doors and provide access.”
It also updates the plan’s values to say the district upholds intellectual freedom and access with the addition: “in a manner that honors the primary role of parents and guardians.”
Fort Vancouver Library District strategic plan mission statement before Monday’s meeting:
We champion equitable access to literacy and life learning for strong, more connected communities.
Fort Vancouver Library District strategic plan language approved on Jan. 26, 2026:
We open doors and provide access to literacy and learning for all, creating a foundation for stronger, more united communities.
The change was approved by a split 4-3 vote of the board, as community members voiced their frustrations online and in-person at the meeting.
After a brief executive session, in which library board members spoke to one another without public oversight, trustee Mary Williams announced she would immediately resign from her position in protest of the last-minute changes.
“I believe deeply in public libraries,” Williams said. “I also believe that when governance requires the suppression of clear values in order to preserve internal harmony, participation becomes complicity. And that is not something I can offer.”
Fort Vancouver Regional Libraries Executive Director Jennifer Giltrap did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
During public comments on Monday, Diane Clark, a public services librarian for the Fort Vancouver Regional Libraries, advocated to keep the original equity language and said changing it would lead to a “one size fits all” approach to access that does not recognize different people’s varied needs.
“Equity demands that we be proactive,” Clark said. “It is the difference between simply keeping the doors open and actively building a bridge to communities that cannot reach the library.”
