Theater organizations and concert organizers in the US have received orders from the National Endowment for the Arts to stop promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion or be denied federal funding.
Some organizers cowardly obey others like the Minneapolis theater group, do just the contrary and double down on DEI initiatives as federal funding is threatened.
« Hateful rhetoric and policies like these have no place in our artistic communities; what they call DEI is what we call our values. We identify and uplift artists who have been historically marginalized, and we materially support their ability to create their world-changing work, full stop, » the Playwrights’ Center wrote in an email.
“If you know our mission at Playwrights’ Center, you know that we cannot choose to receive money from the government if that means pushing artists back to the margins. We cannot hew to the narrowest possible view of who gets to participate in artistic and civic life. »
The center is now asking for donations from the public.
« We cannot comply. We cannot betray our mission. We will not be silent. », is another reaction. Hundreds of artists signed a letter sent to the National Endowment for the Arts asking it to reverse policy changes made as a result of recent executive orders issued by AH Trump.
« We oppose this betrayal of the Endowment’s mission to ‘foster and sustain an environment in which the arts benefit everyone in the United States’, » the letter said.
« Trump and his enablers may use doublespeak to claim that support for artists of color amounts to ‘discrimination’ and that funding the work of trans and women artists promotes ‘gender ideology’ (whatever that is). But we know better: the arts are for and represent everybody. We can’t give that up, » the letter said.
