Andrews notified library staff in a brief e-mail that same day that Hooker “has been relieved of her responsibilities” and that Branch Administrator Anne Haimes would serve as interim director “until a permanent director has been selected as a result of a nationwide search.” Andrews went on to ask staff “to continue to serve the public in your usual exemplary fashion during this period of transition.”
“I support the decision,” Fulton County Chair Karen Handel said in the May 19 Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We need new leadership to reshape the culture of the libraries,” she added, alluding to the library’s being sued twice during Hooker’s tenure for racial discrimination, culminating in an $18-million settlement in 2003 favoring eight white plaintiffs. Still pending is an investigation into an EEOC complaint against the board filed by Hooker herself February 11—the same day that trustees ordered her to undergo management and sensitivity training in reaction to a consultant’s report detailing the staff’s distrust of Hooker as well as of board members.
Posted May 21, 2004.