Carla Hayden, the former librarian of Congress who was fired without explanation by President Donald Trump last month, spoke out about her dismissal on CBS Sunday Morning.

Hayden, who was appointed to the role in 2016 by then President Barack Obama, was the first woman and the first Black person to hold the position. She was fired via an email from the White House Presidential Personnel Office reading, “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service.”

“I was never notified beforehand and after,” Hayden told CBS correspondent Robert Costa. “No one has talked to me directly at all from the White House. I’ve received no communication directly, except for that one email.”

Costa asked, “There have never been any issues between you and President Trump? There’s never been a feud?”

“Oh, no, or any other administration,” she said. “I don’t think it was personal. I don’t know what it was about, frankly.”

“There are librarians, academics, activists, many people in America who are often seen as the quiet types, they’re being loud,” Costa said.

“They’re being loud, I think, and it's so humbling to have that outpouring of support,” Hayden replied. “But what is really, I think, part of this feeling is that it’s part of a larger-seeming effort to diminish opportunities for the general public to have free access to information and inspiration. We like to say, as librarians, ‘Free people read freely.’ And so there’s been an effort recently to quelch that.”

Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.