Three gallery attendants at Noguchi Museum in Queens, New York – a museum founded by and devoted to Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi – were fired last Wednesday for violating a new internal policy that prohibits its staff from wearing keffiyehs, a Middle Eastern headdress that has become a symbol for Palestinians.
Noguchi Museum’s new dress code banning ‘political dress’ was introduced on 14 August, when the museum’s 72 employees received an email asking them to remove garments and accessories that display political messages. Shortly after, a petition opposing the policy was circulated and signed by 54 staff members. A walk-out by eight staff took place on 21 August.
On Sunday, artists, art workers and local residents protested the firings outside the institution and demanded its director Amy Hau to step down.
Noguchi Museum is not alone in dismissing its staff on political grounds. A staff member at cultural centre 92NY in Manhattan has allegedly lost their job after the centre implemented a policy that prohibits patron-facing staff from ‘expressing any personal views about politics or social issues’. According to Hyperallergic, at least five other employees have also resigned following the regulation.
The Manhattan cultural centre, founded in 1874, was previously criticised for cancelling a talk by the Pulitzer-winning Viet Thanh Nguyen last October, after the author signed an open letter in support of Palestine. All of the three staff at 92NY’s Unterberg Poetry Center resigned following the cancellation and the literary series was indefinitely suspended.
12 September: Speaking to ArtReview, a spokesperson for 92NY denied the reports that a staff member was dismissed for breaking the policy: “The 92nd Street Y is a community center that serves a very diverse patron base. As such, our first responsibility is to ensure that people from all backgrounds feel comfortable and welcomed, consistent with the values of the organization. So, over the summer, in advance of the national elections and in the midst of various geopolitical conflicts, like many institutions that are not advocacy organizations, we crafted a neutral and wide-ranging policy asking employees in patron-facing roles to refrain from expressing any personal views about politics or social issues.
“This policy is not directed at what employees advocate in their personal lives or when they are not around patrons at 92NY. It focuses only on what employees express in front of patrons and in public areas of the building, in which context, we ask that they keep their personal politics to themselves. This policy is not about Israel or Palestine, it is a broad policy meant to address political advocacy of any kind in a highly polarized environment. As we have rolled the policy out, we’ve had conversations with several employees who were advocating for a wide spectrum of causes, asking them to please refrain from doing so. Not a single employee has been fired due to this policy.”
