{"id":12375,"date":"2019-06-12T22:38:42","date_gmt":"2019-06-13T02:38:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=12375"},"modified":"2019-06-15T23:39:49","modified_gmt":"2019-06-16T03:39:49","slug":"mfa-racism-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2019\/06\/12\/mfa-racism-2\/","title":{"rendered":"MFA Hires Former Attorney General To Investigate Complaints That Students Faced Racist Treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hoping that \u201can investigation by an external party could provide greater objectivity and clarity,\u201d Boston\u2019s Museum of Fine Arts has hired former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger to look into complaints that students from Boston\u2019s Helen Y. Davis Leadership Academy received racist treatment from the museum during a May 16 visit.<\/p>\n

The Museum of Fine Arts has been the subject of international reports and criticism after students from the school charged that they were told by a museum staffer, \u201cNo food, no drink, and no watermelon,\u201d during an orientation at the beginning of their museum visit. Students and faculty complained that museum guards followed the more than two dozen students, all children of color, and that museum patrons made racist comments to them. When a student danced to music included in an exhibit, Marvelyne Lamy, a seventh-grade English teacher at the school, wrote in a May 20 Facebook post, a \u201cvisitor said that\u2019s it\u2019s a shame that she is not learning and instead stripping.\u201d<\/p>\n

\""The<\/a>
“The MFA has engaged counsel to conduct an external investigation of the incidents on May 16, 2019,” Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts announced June 12, 2019.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The museum apologized to the school and conducted an internal investigation into what happened. \u201cThere is no way to definitively confirm or deny what was said or heard in the galleries\u201d by museum staff, the MFA reported on May 24. \u201cRegardless, the MFA is committed to providing additional training for all frontline staff on how to engage with incoming school groups about policies and guidelines.\u201d<\/p>\n

On May 24, the museum said that it had banned two visitors for making racist comments to seventh graders during their museum tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe MFA has engaged counsel to conduct an external investigation of the incidents on May 16, 2019, and of the Museum\u2019s internal investigation that followed,\u201d the Museum of Fine Arts announced in a June 12 update to its website<\/a>. \u201cThe investigation will be led by former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger of the Boston-based firm Casner & Edwards LLP, and begin immediately. The Museum had announced the findings of its own investigation on May 24, 2019. In the ensuing weeks, we continued discussion with our Boards of Trustees and Advisors, community leaders, and other engaged constituencies. We came to the decision that an investigation by an external party could provide greater objectivity and clarity. We look forward to their report and sharing what we learn with the MFA community and public.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previously:<\/strong>
\n\u2022 \u2018No Food, No Drink And No Watermelon\u2019\u2014MFA Apologizes For Racist Mistreatment Of Students<\/a>
\n\u2022 MFA Bans 2 Visitors, Continues Bias Training After Students Complain Of Racist Treatment<\/a><\/p>\n

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If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Hoping that \u201can investigation by an external party could provide greater objectivity and clarity,\u201d Boston\u2019s Museum of Fine Arts has hired former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger to look into complaints that students from Boston\u2019s Helen Y. Davis Leadership Academy received racist treatment from the museum during a May 16 visit. The Museum of Fine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[37,216,87],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12375"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12375"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12411,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12375\/revisions\/12411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}