After Oak Park Public Library’s former executive director, Joslyn Bowling Dixon, was fired March 16, her friends and colleagues started a crowdfunding campaign to assist with living expenses and, as the donations page hinted, a possible legal challenge to her dismissal.
The GoFundMe titled “Justice for Joslyn,” raised $7,748 as of March 21. The goal was $7,500, according to the fundraiser, and 95 donations have been received.
Dixon was fired after allegations of racism and opposition to her management of a Palestinian cultural event.
The fundraisering page states that Dixon pledges 10% of the donations to the LeRoy C. Merritt Humanitarian fund. According to the American Library Association, the fund supports the welfare of librarians who are denied employment rights or discriminated against because of gender, sexual orientation, race or other factors. It also supports librarians who are denied employment rights because they defend intellectual freedom.
Many of her donors are anonymous, but among the named donors are Jodi Kolo, the library’s director of communications and development, and Suzy Wulf, the library’s deputy director.
The fundraiser states that Dixon’s firing was “the culmination of a misinformation campaign.” The library board of trustees stated that the decision to fire Dixon was not based on one isolated incident, but a “consistent pattern, observed over many months, of a persistent lack of alignment between the priorities of the Board and the Executive Director.”
“We as Joslyn’s friends and colleagues have come together to set up this fund to help her family bridge the gap between now and next steps,” the authors of the GoFundMe page wrote. “We all know how devastating it is to lose one’s livelihood while also looking into legal paths forward, and the time it can take to find new employment.”
Wednesday Journal reported in 2022 that Dixon’s annual salary at the library was $150,000.