Museums across the country are increasingly caught up in partisan skirmishes, called out for their exhibits, programming, or for taking (or not taking) a stand on current events. What kinds of pressure—protests, lawsuits, threats to funding—are being brought to bear? How can museums avoid or respond to these threats?

Future Chats are virtual conversations that explore trends, breaking news, and implications for our sector, hosted by Elizabeth Merritt, Founding Director of AAM’s Center for the Future of Museums.

Speakers:

Julie Decker, PhD, is the Director/CEO of the Anchorage Museum in Alaska, a leading center for scholarship, engagement, and investigation of Alaska and the North. She has a doctorate in art history, a master’s degree in arts administration, and bachelor degrees in visual design and journalism. She has curated numerous exhibitions and authored and edited publications on contemporary art, architecture and the environment.

Elizabeth Merritt is AAM’s vice president for strategic foresight, and founding director of the Center for the Future of Museums—a think-tank and research & development lab for the museum field. She is the author of the Alliance’s annual TrendsWatch report, and writes and speaks prolifically on the trends shaping the future of nonprofit organizations. Elizabeth holds an M.A. from Duke University and a B.S. from Yale University, and attended the Museum Management Institute.

Transcript

Elizabeth Merritt:

Hello and welcome to Future chat. I’m Elizabeth Merritt, vice president of strategic foresight and founding director of the center for the future of museums at the American Alliance of museums. I’m so happy, you’ve joined me for this for the second. In this new web series from CFM.

I wanted to start by telling you a little bit behind the purpose of these future chats. For me, it’s an opportunity to teach a little bit of foresight and share a piece of news from my scanning. And model how to talk about these pieces of news and how to explore implications. It’s also a chance to network something that people tell am. They want more of this networking will be virtually face to face in the breakouts later in the chat. But also via the chat feature of are meat, which is the platform we’re on, I encourage you to use that chat chat feature throughout the session, and if you’re so inclined, go ahead and drop a little note, and chat now to introduce yourself and where you’re from.

A few notes on the culture of future chat. Before we dive in the most important being confidentiality and courtesy. I hope this will be a forum for people to share their thoughts and hopes and anxieties with their peers. While we’re recording the introductory conversation with our guest today.

Please respect that once you go into breakout rooms, that’s all confidential. We’re not recording and what is said in the breakout room stays in the breakout rooms. So please even in this room when we come back to talk to or each other, via chat, don’t repeat what anyone else said especially with attribution. Let’s have a little confidentiality for these discussions.

So, here’s how this will work. I’m going to introduce a piece of news from my scanning. And then I’ll introduce our special guest for the day who will help me explore some of the implications of that piece of news. Then we’ll send you out into breakout rooms with some suggested questions, to guide your conversations and bring you back together towards the end of the hour to share some insights via chat. You notice I keep mentioning chat. Please make copious use of it because I’m really looking forward to seeing what you have to say there.

But before we get started, I’d like to establish a baseline for our conversations today about the current climate of cultural Discord often referred to as culture wars and how it’s affected you personally.  So, we’re going to be putting a poll up on screen. In which you’ll have the options of answering the following question.

Has your work or your personal life, been affected by the cultural current cultural discourse, and your options are going to be nope.

Not affected.

Slightly.

A good deal.

Profoundly.

Or not yet, but I’m worried.

So, let’s get that poll up there and give you a chance to answer it and you’re going to be able to watch how your fellow attendees are answering, while it comes up on stage. Can use to scroll down to see all of the answers and currently our front runner is a good deal at about 42% of the votes and trailing behind is slightly at 30%.

So far, fewer than 3% of our attendees are saying, no, that’s depressing and a solid. 8% are saying, not yet. But I’m a little worried about it. Let’s see if give this another moment to see if those numbers change at all. I am relieved well, about 17% of you are saying that you’ve been affected profoundly. First of all, my deepest sympathies and empathy to those people. I am glad that the figure is not higher, though. I wish it were lower.

Okay.

So that was our overview of how you’re coming into this conversation. Now, on to our signal of change. Foresight is fueled by information, which futurists call scanning hits or signals of change and these bits of information, help us understand the trends and events that are shaping our path into the future. The scanning hit I’m going to share today is from a story that I read in nonprofit, quarterly it popped up in my newsfeed last month and the headline reads cuts to the Arts. Our latest maneuver in culture wars, here’s my Abridged version of the story taken from their text.

This past June nearly 700 organizations, received arts, and funding from the state of Florida. Uh, receiving Arts funding from the state of Florida. Saw their budgets cut. When the governor vetoed 32 million in cultural grants from the state budget. The move effectively, wiped out, the sunshine, State’s support for the Arts. The governor said, he slashed the arts and culture grants, because some of that funding went to support and I’m using quotes because they used quotes Fringe festivals events. That showcase a wide variety of offbeat, Art and performance in some including drag shows and other adult content.

The controversy over Fringe art, while eliciting, headlines could itself be seen as a sideshow only, a small portion of the 32 million vetoed went to the 4 Fringe festivals that call Florida home. That is a story from the Press reflecting, the kinds of things that are help happening around cultural controversy in the US today. And I’m so pleased to introduce our special guest today. Who’s going to help us chat about this signal with that scanning hit is jumping off point. I’m pleased to introduce Dr. Julie Decker, the director and CEO of the Anchorage Museum in Alaska, who is a leading, which is a leading Center for scholarship engagement and investigation of Alaska in the North.

Julie, I’m so pleased that you have joined us today. Hello.

Julie Decker, Ph.D.:

Hi everyone. Thanks for having me, Elizabeth, Elizabeth Merritt. Oh, it’s so good to see you.

I wanted to kick off our chat just by asking based on your experience as a museum. Director what are some thoughts you have about the signal of change? The story I shared with you before the session.

Yeah, I’m seeing um, intensity in places like Florida but also across the country, including in Alaska. Um, on the poll just to be transparent. I clicked profoundly, I think, the culture wars are something if, you’re not dealing with it yet. It’s something we can all connect around in the future because I think it touches all of us. Just yesterday, I noticed that the conservative nonprofit, the American Alliance for equal rights, which had sued the Fearless Fund in Atlanta, for giving small grants to black women, was successful in their effort, and those grants are no more.

So that was just yesterday, that 1 received quite a bit of press. And I think, had a lot of us thinking, we’ve been, chatting with, organizations, like, Pan America, which is saying that it’s seeing the cancellation of book events, cultural events Awards promotions, all kinds of things because of viewpoints and narratives that have become really contentious. I’m sure many of you know about the Smithsonian Latino Museum that had to stop offering, its Latino focused internships and open them up to all Races. After a lawsuit, there’s campaigns across the landscape to create.

What I guess I call moral Panic about public education that extends to book bands School curriculums Museum programs, all of these things really being exploited for political gain and to sew this kind of distrust and Society, in Oklahoma and a museum. There schools started canceling their field trips to the museum, parents and teachers afraid that the children would see something at the museum that would spark. The culture wars, create backlash with uh, parents or school boards. They had protests in their Lobby, and their front of the line staff was being confronted, around these issues, human rights commissions around the country. And the courts are being increasingly used to create this chilling effect for museums, and many other nonprofits that are trying to or offering diverse programming.

It’s happening here in Alaska where 1 of at least 2. I think 3 non-profits that had Human Rights Commission complaints filed against us. One organization was around LGBTQ programming. ours was related to an initiative around indigen. so these 1960s laws are being used, that were intended to support ethic, equity are now being used, sort of in reverse. Last spring, I found myself having a conversation with my board about our tolerance level or our stomach for being sued. This is something I never imagined. I’d be having a conversation about even just a few years ago. So, and I’ll just mention that one thing Pan America talks about is that these chilling effects are about the political moment and museums and libraries and schools may stop doing programs as a reaction. But that the chilling effect really lasts quite a long time. That chilling you back deaf effects are really quite durable. So, it can take 10 years for people to start bringing programs back or bringing these efforts back, even after the controversy has passed or the barriers have been cleared.

So, I’m really conscious about what this means for our industry, for our communities, and really interested in ways that we can support each other, through forms like this. For those of us trying to do the good hard work, and warm our communities rather than, be chilled by all the political winds.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yeah.

Well, thank you for joining to do some of that mutual support today. I just want to, go back to a couple of things, you mentioned, first of all, to make sure that the information is going out about the national needs of the, the American Latino. They actually did not have to change their practice, they merely clarified that the internships that they offered and continue to offer were not restricted to people of Latino um background. So they had to say…

Julie Decker, Ph.D.:

Right. Issued and had to adapt their language and who, and who was eligible, you know.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yes. And thank you for pointing out. No matter what you’re doing and how correct it is, it’s America, you can be sued for anything.

So, well it’s a fair point to make because 1 of the things I’ve been digging into with people and talking to lawyers about is, you know, what really is within the realm of the law even if it wasn’t the intent of the law at the time, it was passed. So, for example, a lot of the roles, the laws that were passed about, employment, were to try and make sure that there was not discrimination against groups that had been historically excluded. And now people are going to court and saying. Well, yes, but technically that means you can’t behave that way towards anyone even majority groups that have been privileged in the past. So, yes, there is a legal Jeopardy there. And in fact, some of those lawsuits are proven to be successful like the lawsuit against, students for fair admissions against Harvard and the University of North Carolina, that has upended systems of trying to achieve diverse student bodies based on race. Okay? Now, you can look for diversity in other ways, but it can’t be explicitly race-based. That’s a real legal vulnerability.

There are other things where I started to say to directors and to lawyers. Well, you know, there are these other things that and I’d love to get into this more with you, but clearly are not covered by the law and somebody stopped me and said, well, yeah, but you could still get sued about it because anybody can sue anybody about anything? So, a director has to be thinking about the risk of having to spend the money and take the, the, the potential PR hit and the time, and the stress of going to court to defend yourself. Even if you’re confident, you’re going to win.

Julie Decker, Ph.D.:

Exactly. I think this is our new landscape and I think it’s an important conversation for us to have is, with our communities, with our staffs with our boards and understand that, you know, we should still be taking risk. We should still be bold in our programming. We should still be trying to reach the people. We need to be reaching and um, this may be an unintended consequence, but um, it’s probably a skill set. We have to start building for how to, face this kind of uh, legal landscape.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yeah. So, I’d love to share with you some of the when I was doing this brainstorming, some of the things that people were coming up with where it seems like…

Julie Decker, Ph.D.:

However, fraud.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Probably, you’re not immune to Legal challenge, but you’re probably on safe ground in terms of winning. Um, one of the things we’re seeing in the news. A lot is that big companies like John Deere and Lowe’s, are being criticized for their Dei policies and a lot of companies are also being criticized for their environmental social and governmental investment policies.

So, they’ve chosen to use their vast Financial reserves to invest them in a way that creates a better world, and some stockholder groups are bringing suits saying no, your financial and legal obligation is to maximize returns for the investor. Thank you, Milton Freedman but private nonprofit museums don’t have stockholders and one of the things that people have been writing about talking about for many years at the Am manual meeting and through the CFM blog and other outlets is the fact that museums can invest their endowments to do good in the world. And that’s an area where again I’m talking to people and trying to learn more from legal experts, but it seems like, no, 1 has standing to say, you can’t invest last year endowment and the way that you think best supports your mission, I don’t know if you’ve heard any conversations about that.

Julie Decker, Ph.D.:

No. Absolutely. I mean I think we’re seeing this in all aspects of our practice, and I think there’s really important conversations for us to have around our values. Including in our endowments and the ways we invest and the ways we think about fundraising. Um, I definitely have just in this year, noticed a language shift and people inventing new phrases instead of saying Dei, and watching just language uh adapt out of uh, fear or compromise. Um, and curious what this looks like um, even 1 year from now. And obviously the elephant in the room is a major election that’s coming up that could, stress or loosen the stress on these kinds of conversations, I think we don’t know yet.

Elizabeth Merritt:

I’m glad you brought up the point about language. Someone in the chat had asked about a definition of culture wars and thank you to a helpful person who went over to Wikipedia and picked up a definition of drop that in chat and I was actually having a conversation about this over email with a a museum director um earlier this week is, is it helpful or harmful to validate that term and call it culture wars? Which sounds so military and so hostile. And then going in subsequently talking to colleagues about it in in it’s difficult on one hand, there are areas of cultural of there are areas of disagreement and different values that we in society disagree on and have to have civil conversations about to figure out what Mutual laws, can we agree to and standards of operating so we can all live in a unified country.

And that is not inherently a hostile or militant thing. I think what created the, the term war. And this was true back in the 1970s with the first round of cultural Wars that that pulled museums into their remit was that language becomes weaponized, and I hate to use military terms, but it seems to work this way that that certain topics are being highlighted as a means of punishing groups that that you don’t feel. Align with your values. Not to talk it out, but to punish them and also in to a certain extent, as you said about the election, because it generates news, it’s a way to get attention.

It’s a way to tell people who agree with you that you’re supporting them and that you support their values. And of course, museums as highly respected prominent social institutions, I guess, should we feel flattered that we’re pulled into this? If we weren’t important, nobody would bother to attack us.

But in part because we’re seen as cultural leaders. People care, deeply about what we do and so museums can be the subject of these attacks.

Julie Decker, Ph.D.:

Yeah, I also think there’s a brand mimicking. I mean, I think there’s, you know centers where these kinds of conversations start and these tensions build and then other groups and places, might see these techniques and how people are using human rights commissions to uh, have these fights. And so those of us who may be very close to our communities and where these really aren’t tensions necessarily, are still faced with the same issues because there’s kind of this National, effort. That’s uh, mimicking other places. So it can be, challenging to figure out how to have those conversations with your local community and talk about uh, how these National efforts may or may not uh be relevant to your Museum and your community. But you know, you have to figure out a way to have those conversations. Um and not spend all your time back on your heels.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yes, and if someone mentioned in the chat, this is internal as well because we can’t assume that just because we can use and you’re on the board of a museum director and stuff with all agree with each other. If there are internal areas of descent, how do we model ways to talk this out? And come to agreement about things that very strongly held beliefs on among the staff and the board and the leadership, we’re not everybody agrees with each other.

Julie Decker, Ph.D.:

Yeah, when we had a group of nonprofits get together, um earlier this year and say, okay this is a landscape we’re facing. This is a Human Rights Commission is going to be used and you’re, here’s what we’re looking at in our future and our reactions was not so much, well, let’s be defensive. It was could we work together to provide support across? Not just our sector, but many nonprofit sectors. Have a more of a collective Voice have more collaboration so we can be there. Um each time somebody faces these things, they’re not starting the uh starting the reaction a new and that maybe we could be more thoughtful and responsive working together.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yes. Right. Both the emotional support and the Practical advice that we can get from each other.

Julie Decker, Ph.D.:

Yeah.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Which is a good which is a good pivot to the next section of the chat. Because what we’re going to do now is give or attendees the opportunity to chat with each other about how cultural conflict is affecting their lives and works. Uh, and this is a place where many of these questions can chat conversation.

We’re going to do; we’re going to send you out into rooms of 6 people to a room. Uh, but as we found out in our first chat earlier, sometimes people have to drop out. If you end up in a room with too few people in that, don’t worry, we’re going to have a stage manager trying to then merge you into another room. And so, there are more people for the discussion. Patient.

Before we send you, I’m just going to review our suggestions for how you might structure your conversations.

First of all, this is a networking opportunity. Please take a minute to introduce yourself just quickly around the room. Who are you? Where are you calling in from? What organization do you work for?

And then here are 3 questions to think about. We’ll be pushing these out to you as well. But suggestions for beginning the conversation.

Have you or your organization been impacted by the current cultural conflicts. And what does that look like? So, sharing stories for support.

What risks do you think these conflicts pose for museums?

What are the biggest things we have to worry about as a sector?

And then last of all and perhaps, most importantly, what do you think museums can do to reduce these risks?

So, we’re going to send you out to talk about these 3 things, 4 things, introductions, those 3 questions. And we look forward, when you come back to having you report out in chat, some of your big insights. So again, confidentiality for specific statements or stories but in terms of I learned that this was a really good idea, or I had a thought about this. That would be great if you’re ready to report out on that uh when you come back.

So, now we’re going to be flipping you into discussion groups. So, let’s pause and breathe a minute because the technology has to catch up.

Hello, and welcome back. I hope you had a great time. Meeting some people in your chat rooms and having a live discussion around our questions. I’m looking forward to seeing you share out some of your observations in chat, respect and confidentiality but as you get started with the chat, we were going to do another poll a second poll to gauge the tenor of the discussions in your rooms. So, we’re going to put up a poll that asks you, which of the following impacts from the current cultural Discord? You think pose a risk to your organization? This may be informed by your discussions and your choices are going to be decreased funding from government sources or donors. Public controversy, and or negative press? Difficulty attracting or retaining staff? This may be geographically based.

Censorship of content by external authorities or self-censorship due to caution. Now, we could only put 3, we could only put 6, that many options. We could only put that many options on this poll, but if you have other answers, you can always drop them into chat. So, let’s see what people are saying they have for this question. And remember, if you’re only seeing part of the poll on screen, you can use the little scroll bar on the right to scroll down and see the answers and so far, our leading answer it’s oh it’s a closed. It’s a close race. But so far, the leading answer is decreased funding from government sources or donors and trailing is a pretty close second we have public controversy and or negative press and then very close, third self-censorship due to caution and the least frequent answers so far at less than 3%, are difficulty attracting and retaining staff.

Oh, there’s 6% almost on censorship of content by external authorities. Now just keeps changing and then about 2% other and I’m looking forward to hearing more about the other in the chats.

All right. That was very interesting. Thank you for that. And Julie you can put your camera on again. I am looking at the chat to see you. People were talking about, some people are selling all of the above, so that’s depressing. That’s true. That’s true. Okay, next time, next time we’ll have multiple option votes. I hear you, we won’t make you choose.

Let’s see. Emily. I’m sorry you didn’t see the poll results. They were showing on screen, but uh, my memory of the front runner is was that the most frequently chosen option was decreased funding government sources are donors and then public controversy negative press self-censorship due to caution and then a trailing censorship of content by external authorities. And very few people said they were anticipating being difficulty, attracting or retaining staff. No, I’m sorry. Some of the people were not seeing the results. We’ll work on that.

Okay, let’s see. Corey is saying in chat that one challenge is internal pressure from vectors to not be too controversial for fear of offending donors. And yes, I have heard several stories from Museum directors, who have been directly contacted by donors who were serve their funding was contingent on the museum taking or not taking specific positions.

Let’s see. And Sean is commenting. I think attracting and retaining staff is greater than we might know. This is a good point. You don’t necessarily know who’s not applying to your job. We don’t know what we don’t know. I have certainly heard a number of comments from Individual Museum, people who are looking for jobs, telling me that there were places, they didn’t want to work.

And Samantha is commenting navigating. The relationship between communities can be really difficult too especially when they’re in conflict with 1 another. Yes, thank you is. Julie was commenting to me when we were in a chat room. While you guys were off talking to each other, this isn’t monolithic. It’s not there’s only one group of people who are saying these things to the museum. There are many groups from the inside and the outside who disagree with each other. So the museum and often in terms of making decisions that means the border the director or caught between these conflicting messages about who wants them to do. What and what the threatened actions going to be if they don’t comply.

This is a pretty, this is a pretty extreme direct example, Elizabeth is writing that, there was oh, oops. Sorry, that’s somebody else’s story. It was in the Press, but I don’t think I’m going to read it because it isn’t the person on their story right now.

Anything jumping out at you Julie from the discussion in the chat.

Julie Decker, Ph.D.:

I mean, I think it’s interesting to think about, you know, everything from conversations with donors to what it means for museum staff and the durability of our own. Will and morality. But I think one thing that’s worth chatting about too. Is the social media impact? You know, where the feedback is coming from and where it gets. Sometimes it’s most vile. We’ve had to think, talk a lot internally about, are we reacting or responding to every comment? How do you take in that kind of input? The rapid nature of social media. And, you know, when, when do you write it out? And when do you, hold it close and figure out, how to take in that kind of input? So, I think part of it is ALS, just the complexity and how we hear from our audiences and, you know, who the pressure is coming from or how.

Elizabeth Merritt:

I’m glad you brought that up. I was just looking at a, a diagram that a very thoughtful person posted on medium. That was basically showing the sorts of amount of feedback you get from people on social media. And he basically drew this little curve that humps over here. And then there’s a dip in the middle which is the majority of people. And then a hump over here for people who are at the other extreme and pointing out that the people who tend to be most vocal on social media are usually a minority, but they are heard so strongly and they have such a big effect on the dialogue. And the way that the conversation goes in other mainstream outlets like the press that people tend to overestimate, the size of a negative reaction or push back. Are these research partners Will Kenning has also posted a data story about that on her site for with, with Will cutting Consulting that I highly recommend.

It talks about how not to, how not to put too much emphasis on small minority of people who have very strong negative opinions.

I think the problem, the very on that right now is nationally some of that small number of people with very strong opinions, have a lot of money, and they’re using that money to hire lawyers. So it you can’t just go by well only 2% of people disagree with us. If those 2% of people are willing to drag you to court and give you a lot of grief and expense and time.

Julie Decker, Ph.D.:

Yeah. There’s an emotional capacity aspect to all of it, too. I mean I think…

Elizabeth Merritt:

Kathy. Any debates from history of Colorado, dropped in a link to the data story. I referred to thank you so much. Katie, that’s great.

Let’s see.

And Robbie’s pointing out that social media tends to influence the main, the main, the stories that get filled up, picked up in the traditional press as well, I think.

Julie Decker, Ph.D.:

Agreed.

And there’s not always nuanced or complexity showing up even in the major newspapers around these issues.

Elizabeth Merritt:

The optimist in me wants to say that that makes museum p or staff more important than ever, because you need to balance those negative prescriptions. We’re in your own stream of balanced positive reporting about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. And then the little inner cynic in me says, but that’s not as fun to listen to…Oh hi. Susie waving to Susie.

Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Today, I look forward to seeing you at upcoming future chats and at the summit at the end of October, take care and be well.