{"id":867847,"date":"2021-10-11T12:59:48","date_gmt":"2021-10-11T16:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=867847"},"modified":"2021-10-11T12:59:52","modified_gmt":"2021-10-11T16:59:52","slug":"famed-art-institute-of-chicago-fires-all-docents-primarily-white-women-critics-charge-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/famed-art-institute-of-chicago-fires-all-docents-primarily-white-women-critics-charge-racism\/","title":{"rendered":"Famed Art Institute Of Chicago Fires All Docents, Primarily White Women. Critics Charge Racism."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffamed-art-institute-of-chicago-fires-all-docents-primarily-white-women-critics-charge-racism%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=867847&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/GettyImages-73071991.jpg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>The famed Art Institute of Chicago fired all of its volunteer docents in early September, and allegedly they did so because the group of predominantly white, retired women was not \u201cdiverse\u201d and \u201cinclusive\u201d enough.<\/p>\n<p>The Art Institute of Chicago 2021-2022 Docent Council fired back on September 13 in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagonow.com\/dennis-byrnes-barbershop\/2021\/09\/art-institute-of-chicago-fires-docents-because-they-are-too-many-whites-in-their-ranks\/\">letter<\/a> delineating the numerous contributions the docents had made over the years. They wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote readability=\"8\">\n<p><em>We believe we were dismissed (1) because the museum\u2019s perspective is that the current docent corps\u2019 demographics do not meet the need of the strategic plan (2) the museum concluded that reengineering the docent program was a step towards achieving the museum\u2019s important goal of creating a culture of diversity and inclusion.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The editorial board of The Chicago Tribune <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/opinion\/editorials\/ct-edit-art-institute-docents-firing-20210927-dfrho66bjba2bp27phz2yndwzu-story.html\">condemned the move<\/a> to fire the docents on September 27, &nbsp;citing what they called the \u201cweaselly letter\u201d from Veronica Stein, the Woman\u2019s Board executive director of learning and engagement that was sent to the museum\u2019s roughly 150 volunteer docents. The Tribune continued, \u201cOnce you cut through the blather, the letter basically said the museum had looked critically at its corps of docents, a group dominated by mostly (but not entirely) white, retired women with some time to spare, and found them wanting as a demographic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo matter that the docents had typically trained for years, if not decades, on how to describe the Art Institute\u2019s collection, or worked hard on adjusting to the trendy new ways (\u2018Art and Activism\u2019) of describing the work to be found there, or put in hour after hour in academic study of their fields,\u201d The Tribune added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrankly, the museum would certainly have had a tough lawsuit on its hands for age and race discrimination (there were laws against that, last time we checked) were it not for one thing: Everyone being nixed was a volunteer,\u201d The Tribune noted. \u201cAnd, as at least one docent found out after contacting the AARP, volunteers are not covered by federal employment laws. We\u2019ll wager museum lawyers had pointed that out.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"8.7405405405405\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Museum appoints Veronica Stein as the new Woman&#8217;s Board Executive Director, Learning and Public Engagement <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/museum?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#museum<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/VeronicaStein?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#VeronicaStein<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/TheArtInstituteofChicago?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#TheArtInstituteofChicago<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/art?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#art<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/newspaper?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#newspaper<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/artinstitutechi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@artinstitutechi<\/a> The Art Institute of Chicago <\/p>\n<p>Read more about this here: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gXhMl2pg9r\">https:\/\/t.co\/gXhMl2pg9r<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/F15zGKoP0h\">pic.twitter.com\/F15zGKoP0h<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 ArtDaily, The First Art Newspaper on the Net (@artdaily) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/artdaily\/status\/1373922587403808772?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 22, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Three days later, Robert M. Levy, the chair of the board of trustees at the Art Institute of Chicago, dodged the question as to whether \u201cdiversity\u201d was the reason for the firings. He <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/opinion\/commentary\/ct-opinion-art-institute-docent-change-response-20210930-himtjin2xne2jkkkb7hzz5xpra-story.html\">responded<\/a>, \u201cWith the recent 15-month pause on in-person school tours due to the pandemic and the deeply reduced need for school tours for the current year, the museum is updating this 60-year-old model in order to invest in trained education professionals, alongside volunteers, to deliver on our core mission.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He attacked the Tribune, excoriating the paper for its \u201cegregiously anti-civic stance\u201d:<\/p>\n<blockquote readability=\"10.575107296137\">\n<p><em>Tuesday\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/opinion\/editorials\/ct-edit-art-institute-docents-firing-20210927-dfrho66bjba2bp27phz2yndwzu-story.html\">Chicago Tribune editorial&nbsp;<\/a>contained numerous inaccuracies and mischaracterizations of the Art Institute\u2019s decision to rebuild our model for learning. Rather than looking at the museum as a leader in how cultural institutions around the world are evolving to meet the needs of their audiences, the Editorial Board\u2019s take resulted in a wholehearted endorsement of the status quo. The Tribune\u2019s egregiously anti-civic stance, and the decision of many in our community to view this as an indictment of their own identity, is misaligned and disregards the driving force behind the program: to better serve Chicago-area students and visitors and foster lifelong relationships with art.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The famed Art Institute of Chicago fired all of its volunteer docents in early September, and allegedly they did so because the group of predominantly white, retired women was not &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-867847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}