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A former curator is suing the Worcester Artwork Museum (WAM) in Massachusetts, accusing the director and several other senior workers of discrimination.
Within the civil lawsuit, filed in Worcester County Superior Courtroom final month, Rachel Parikh alleges she was “subjected to a hostile and offensive work surroundings” throughout her employment on the museum. “The malicious and relentless harassment made the work surroundings insupportable,” the lawsuit mentioned, alleging that Parikh was “mocked and ridiculed as a result of she is a brown-skinned South Asian” Indian girl.
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The 64-page submitting particulars allegations towards WAM director Matthias Waschek and Claire Whitner, director of curatorial affairs and curator of European artwork, who was Parikh’s supervisor. The civil lawsuit alleges that Parikh endured a number of situations of “racism and unwelcome and offensive habits,” together with a number of feedback about her look, negotiations over her job title that didn’t precisely think about Parikh’s six years of labor expertise, new staffers being handled extra favorably, and her varied makes an attempt to report the alleged incidents.
The accusations within the submitting embody allegations about two meals Parikh had with Waschek and his husband outdoors the museum, the place Parikh alleges the boys requested intrusive questions on her cultural background and imitated an Indian accent in reference to a British tv present that aired within the Nineties.
The go well with additionally names 4 officers on the museum’s govt committee as defendants: Dorothy Chen-Courtin, Douglas Brown, Sarah Berry, and Susan Bassick.
Parikh is a specialist in South Asian and Islamic artwork, notably works on paper in addition to arms and armor. Earlier than WAM, Parikh labored on the Artwork Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork, and was a Calderwood Curatorial Fellow of South Asian Artwork on the Harvard Artwork Museums.
After the consultancy agency LAM & Associates investigated Parikh’s allegations of harassment and retaliation at WAM in 2022, a closing report mentioned it couldn’t substantiate the claims with different colleagues however did discover her statements “credible.”
The agency’s investigator, Laurie Margolies, interviewed a number of museum staff and likewise discovered “little belief that staff felt they had been protected and could be stored protected.” Margolies wrote within the July 2022 report that she noticed that “loyalty appeared to trump honesty or reminiscence” and that descriptions of Parikh’s allegations “match a sample that started previous to her arrival on the museum.”
Parikh resigned from her place at WAM as affiliate curator of the humanities of Asia and the Islamic World in September 2022. In keeping with the criticism, Parikh’s discover mentioned her resignation was as a consequence of WAM failing to uphold its personal insurance policies and relevant legal guidelines, in addition to the “ensuing hostile and psychologically unsafe work surroundings.”
“I’ve been left no alternative however to depart WAM because of the detrimental affect all of that is having on my emotional, psychological, and bodily well being, in addition to my well-being,” Parikh wrote.
“The Board had endorsed and authorised the discriminatory and retaliatory habits in full disregard of Dr. Parikh’s rights by failing to take her severely, and refusing to carry Mr. Waschek accountable despite the fact that the skin investigator had concluded that Mr. Waschek’s habits was utterly unacceptable,” the criticism reads.
After the discharge of the LAM & Associates report, the museum board required Waschek to bear “additional coaching and efforts to extend DEAI efforts on the Museum,” in keeping with paperwork offered to WBUR.
On August 10, a WAM spokesperson despatched a written assertion to ARTnews acknowledging the lawsuit filed in Worcester Superior Courtroom, and that the museum “stays dedicated to offering a office the place everyone seems to be handled with dignity and respect, so we take these allegations very severely.” The assertion additionally mentioned the paperwork reveal “confidential HR data.”
“This has put the Museum able the place the one option to set the file straight could be to reveal confidential and personal data in a fashion that will violate our personal insurance policies and compromise the privateness of present and former staff,” wrote WAM spokesperson Madeline Feller. “We look ahead to addressing these claims via the authorized course of.”
The general public relations agency Rasky Companions additionally despatched ARTnews an electronic mail with a written assertion from Waschek, which mentioned he was dismayed by the allegations made within the lawsuit, calling them “false,” and that they invoked “homophobic tropes.”
“I’ve labored onerous over the past thirty plus years to construct a popularity of professionalism and integrity,” Waschek wrote. “As a homosexual man who has skilled discrimination first-hand, I’ve all the time held DEAI points as a core worth, and have sought to do my finest to eradicate discrimination from the office and construct a tradition of inclusivity. To learn these patently false statements and to see my husband, who doesn’t even work on the Museum, dragged into it and equally maligned, is staggering.”
Parikh’s lawyer, Lana Sullivan, additionally advised WBUR this lawsuit is her second case towards the museum and Waschek. The earlier case, filed in 2015, resulted in a settlement.
The information of the lawsuit was first reported by WBUR.
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