{"id":875220,"date":"2021-10-13T12:59:11","date_gmt":"2021-10-13T16:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=875220"},"modified":"2021-10-13T12:59:13","modified_gmt":"2021-10-13T16:59:13","slug":"art-institute-of-chicago-fires-majority-white-docents-because-of-equity-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/art-institute-of-chicago-fires-majority-white-docents-because-of-equity-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"Art Institute of Chicago Fires Majority White Docents Because of \u2018Equity\u2019 Concerns"},"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\">24<\/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%2Fart-institute-of-chicago-fires-majority-white-docents-because-of-equity-concerns%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=875220&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 readability=\"29.322175732218\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"article-category\"><a class href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/culture\/\">Culture<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-excerpt\">Docents are unpaid volunteers with years of experience<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-thumbnail-container relative lg:mr-24 w-full my-4 mb-8\">\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"736\" height=\"491\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Art-Institute-of-Chicago-736x491-1.jpeg\" class=\"w-full lazyload blur-up wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 736px) 100vw, 736px\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Art-Institute-of-Chicago-736x491.jpeg 736w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Art-Institute-of-Chicago-768x512.jpeg 768w\" data-sizes=\"auto\" \/><figcaption class=\"absolute text-white p-4 w-full text-right text-xs bottom-0 bg-black opacity-75\">\n\t\t\t\tThe Art Institute of Chicago \/ Facebook\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\t\t\t<span class=\"text-gray text-xs md:text-lg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/karl-salzmann\/\" title=\"Posts by Karl Salzmann\" class=\"author url fn text-red-700\" rel=\"author\">Karl Salzmann<\/a> \u2022 October 13, 2021 12:45 pm<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<div readability=\"77.023255813953\">\n<p>The Art Institute of Chicago fired all 122 of its unpaid, volunteer docents, seemingly because most of them are white.<\/p>\n<p>Woman&#8217;s Board Executive Director of Learning and Public Engagement Veronica Stein on Sept. 3 gave the docents a collective pink slip, saying the museum&#8217;s docent program doesn&#8217;t adequately respond to &#8220;issues of class and income equity.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The majority of the museum&#8217;s former docents are white, older women, the <i>Chicago Tribune<\/i> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/opinion\/editorials\/ct-edit-art-institute-docents-firing-20210927-dfrho66bjba2bp27phz2yndwzu-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">noted<\/a> in its editorial on the firing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Once 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,&#8221; the <i>Tribune<\/i> wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Museum board chairman Robert M. Levy in a <i>Tribune<\/i>&nbsp;op-ed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/opinion\/commentary\/ct-opinion-art-institute-docent-change-response-20210930-himtjin2xne2jkkkb7hzz5xpra-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a> the editorial contains &#8220;numerous inaccuracies and mischaracterizations,&#8221; though he did not say what they were.<\/p>\n<p>The 122 former docents had to go through rigorous, 18-month training sessions, 5 years of research, and biweekly further trainings for their unpaid service. They will be replaced, Stein said, by a &#8220;limited number of paid educators&#8221;&nbsp;the museum will choose based on &#8220;an income equity-focused lens.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Many local writers expressed anger at the museum&#8217;s decision, with University of Chicago emeritus professor Jerry Coyne <a href=\"https:\/\/whyevolutionistrue.com\/2021\/10\/09\/the-art-institute-of-chicago-fires-all-122-of-its-unpaid-and-volunteer-docents-because-they-arent-sufficiently-diverse\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">writing<\/a> that it is &#8220;grossly unfair and inimical to the education of museum-goers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Local journalist Dennis Byrne, meanwhile, <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\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wrote<\/a> that the Art Institute &#8220;is being run for the benefit of the woke bureaucracy that&#8217;s now in charge&#8221; rather than &#8220;the black and brown Chicago school children who benefited mightily from the docent tours.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Culture Docents are unpaid volunteers with years of experience  The Art Institute of Chicago \/ Facebook  Karl Salzmann \u2022 October 13, 2021 12:45 pm &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"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-875220","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\/875220","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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=875220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875220\/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=875220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}