Museums are increasingly confronted with difficult choices about whether and when to take a public stand regarding current events and emerging challenges. How can directors work with boards and staff to make thoughtful decisions about issuing statements or taking concrete action? How do mission and values guide when a museum speaks out?

The Japanese American National Museum (JANM) in Los Angeles has tackled these questions firsthand, issuing public positions on multiple occasions this year, from a January statement defending history, democracy and civil rights to an August press release decrying the appearance of federal agents during California Governor Gavin Newsom’s visit to the museum’s Democracy Center. JANM President & CEO Ann Burroughs joins Center for the Future of Museums Director Elizabeth Merritt to share insights into JANM’s approach. Their conversation will seed small group discussions, giving attendees the opportunity to consider how their museums are preparing to respond to similar challenges.

Transcript

Elizabeth Merritt:

Hello, and intent 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 to join you for our third future chat of 2020.These chats are an opportunity for me to teach a little bit of foresight by sharing a piece of news from my scanning. There are there are three or four stories from my scanning each week via the free weekly e-newsletter dispatches from the future of museums and where dropping a link in chat for how you can subscribe to that.

This is a way for me to model how you can think about those pieces of news and think about the implications for the world and for your organization and for your personal life. It’s also a chance for you to network with your peers. Something people tell AAM they want more of. That networking will take place in breakout rooms later in the chat. And also via the chat feature of Airmeet. So I encourage you to use that throughout. If you’re so inclined, use chat now to introduce yourself and where you’re from. I see several people are weighing in already.

Hello? A few notes about the culture of future chat before we dive in. Notably, confidentiality.

While we are recording my introductory conversation with our guest, please respect that what’s said in the breakout rooms, stay in the breakout rooms. Don’t repeat anyone what anyone else has said, especially not with attribution.

Now here’s how it will work. I am going to introduce a piece of news from my scanning. Then I’ll introduce our special guest who will help me explore some of the implications of that story. We’ll send you out into breakout rooms with suggestions to guide your conversation and then bring you back together at the end of the hour to share some insights Please do make copious use of chat throughout. We’ll do our best to watch and respond, and we’ll also be sharing links and resources in chat.

Now our topic for today, I is one that I know is front of mind for many museum people this year. When and how to take a stance speaking out about important issues and events? I’m gonna ground our discussion in one piece of recent news. In March, president Trump signed an executive order to reshape and remove content that, quote, portrays American and West values as inherently harmful and imp and oppressive, unquote. And promote American greatness at the Smithsonian Institution. On August 19, NPR reported on a long social media post in which Trump emphasized his ongoing displeasure with the Smithsonian describing it as out of control, all caps, and suggesting that museums around the country may face similar scrutiny.

He said, I have instructed my attorneys to go through the museums and start the same process that has been done with colleges and universities where tremendous progress has been made. This country cannot be woke because woke is broke. We have the hottest country in the world, and we want people to talk about it. Including in our museums. We’re dropping a link to that NPR story in chat. Now many associations felt it was necessary and appropriate to speak out in response to the executive orders criticizing the Smithsonian. We’re also dropping a link in chat with a statement from AAM speaking out about the growing threat of censorship of museums. Here’s a quote from our statement.

This is not just a concern for select institutions. These pressures can create a chilling effect across the entire museum sector. Freedom of thought and expression are foundational American values, and museums uphold them by creating spaces where people can engage with history, science, art, and culture in ways that are honest, fact based, and thought provoking. Now before I introduce our guest for today’s chat, I’d like to get a feel for your experiences with this trend. So we’re going to put a poll up on screen asking about your experiences and feelings with this issue.

The poll is gonna come up on the screen. You may have to scroll down to see all of the options for And the question is, which of the following is true for you or your organization? You can check all that apply. And your options are my organization has made a public statement about an issue, Some statements have been on issues related to our mission, Some statements have been about broader issues. My organization has considered but decided not to make a public statement on some issue or event. I, personally, have sometimes felt my organization should make a public statement on some issue or event. Or you can select one of the above. So you can go ahead and go ahead and answer those. And then hit vote. And we were going to be showing the results after the poll has ended.

So we will display that in just a couple minutes after people finish weighing in. Meanwhile, I’m gonna go ahead and give an introduction to our chat guest today. And then I will, pause while we talk about the results of the poll. And bring her on stage. Anne Burrows is the president and CEO of the Japanese American National Museum and its National Center for the Preservation of Democracy. She is an internationally recognized leader in the field of human rights and social justice, a member of the International Board of Directors Amnesty International and immediate past chair of Amnesty International USA, and a former chair of Amnesty International’s global assembly.

Anne’s lifelong commitment to let little in social justice was shaped by her experience as a activist in her native South Africa merger. She was jailed as a political prisoner for her opposition to apartheid. For over twenty five years, she has worked with leaders, organizations, and network in The US and abroad to promote racial justice and right based culture. And can we just see the our poll before I bring Okay. Before I bring Anne on stage, I’m just gonna summarize for her what I’m seeing in the audience. About 20% of you, one in five, has said your organization has made a public statement. About the same amount have been on issues related to our mission, only 15% on broader issues, 17% have considered but decided not to make a public statement. And nearly a quarter of you, 23%, have sometimes felt my organization should make a statement on a public issue or event.

Great. So now that we know what you are experiencing Ambiance. Ambiance. And please join me on stage.

Ann Burroughs:

Hi. Hello, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Merritt:

It’s so good to have you today. Thank you for joining us.

Ann Burroughs:

It’s so good to be here, and thank you so much for the invitation. And, you know, hello to everybody who is joining us online. I wish I could see you all you know, it’s,

Elizabeth Merritt:

Well, Anne, based on your experience, what are some thoughts you have about the signal change I shared at the beginning of the webinar?

Ann Burroughs:

I think that we have to, you know, as museum professionals, and as being sort of practitioners in this field, I think that we have to ask ourselves sort of several key questions. And for me, this sort of relates to how we viewed as museums by the community, or by, you know, the American public. We know that we remain we still remain as being, you know, the institutions that are trusted the most. You know? We are seen as being sort of at the center of community, as being sort of central to central hubs of our community. And I think that that raises the question for us of you know, what is our responsibility? You know, what is our responsibility to our community? What is our responsibility as you know, as sort of as hubs, as community hubs. You know? I feel very, very strongly, and I’m sure many people do online as well, that you know, there’s a there’s almost a civic duty, certainly for us, at our museum, at the Japanese American National Museum, to you know, present and preserve history and truth you know, on as honestly and fully as possible. You know, our community certainly requires that of us. You know, we were founded in order to ensure that the history of what happened to Japanese Americans would never would never be forgotten, and that it would never it would never happen to anybody else.

So I think I think for us, certainly, you know, as we think about truth, as we think about standing up for truth, and as we’re thinking about how we, you know, preserve and present that truth and that history. Any we need to be able to do it really becomes a first amendment issue because I think that we need to be able to do that without interference, without fear of retribution. You know, without any kind of censure or censorship. But I also understand that and I know that we’ll talk about it later. I’m sure we will. But some museums have the luxury to do that and others don’t. But for us, if we’re true to our mission, if we don’t do that, if we don’t stand up, you know, then we also sever our thread to the future. And so much of what we do is based on working towards a more just future.

Elizabeth Merritt:

And it’s clear that you act on that value quite often. Janam has taken a public position on many occasions.

Regarding issues of both local and national significance. Can you tell me a little bit about how you work with your board and staff to decide when the museum will take a stand? By the way, we’re dropping a link in chat to the Janum Press page where you can find the statements they’ve made on a number of issues.

Ann Burroughs:

Okay. Well, yes. You know? And the interesting thing about this, and, again, I know we are in a very unique position. But, our board has led with this position. They did not require any prompting from me. We had a conversation with them in January where we framed the issues, You know, we looked at the different scenarios, potential funding cuts, which of course you know, have, have materialized. But for, you know, for our trustees, it was deeply personal. Because for most of them, it was their parents and grandparents who had been incarcerated. You know, they came out of the civil rights movement, of the anti Vietnam movement, of the Asian American movement, and so we were all seeing, but for them, the sort of

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yeah.

Ann Burroughs:

seeing those policies that echoed you know, echoed the same injustices that that created our founding was know, just the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. You know, the building of detention camps, you know, the

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yeah.

Ann Burroughs:

the attempt to revoke or the talk about revoking birthright citizenship. You know, the ice raids. You know, these were for them very, very chilling reminders of the past. So it was not an I mean, there was no persuasion needed. So they have actually they have led the way, and they’ve charged us to you know, use this extraordinary statement that they brought out in in the middle of in the February when we were the lone museum.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yeah.

Ann Burroughs:

To actually take a stand, and they’ve charged us to stand up programming that will bring that statement to life.

Elizabeth Merritt:

And can you tell me a little bit about any of the programming you were doing to follow-up on that? I never thought I would say it was sad that a museum’s missions was timely, but it I’m

Ann Burroughs:

Sure. So, you know, we’re extraordinarily fortunate that we have, our National Center for Preservation of Democracy at the museum, which I think is an amazing platform. You know, it’s a place where we bring people together to talk about difficult issues. But we also look at having difficult questions, and we look at ways that we can, you know, bridge that divide. So we’ve done you know, we do programming that relates to the fragility of democracy, but we’ve looked very intentionally at how to you know, use that history you know, use the history of the Japanese American experience to you know, inform what we do now, to inform our programming, and always to reflect back on the relevance of that history and just how unbelievable urgent that that history is now. You know, we’re closed. Our galleries are closed to public for a big, renovation project, and I’m sorry if you hear noises of, you know, jackhammers and things in the background. So we’ve had to center most of our programming at our center, but, of course, you know, we’re a national museum, so we do you know, programming all over the country as well and work deeply with partners all over the country.

Elizabeth Merritt:

in some ways, sorry that you find yourself in a position of playing such a right vital role reminding people what has happened in the past and could happen again? Yeah.

Well, as you said, this is somewhat a unique situation because you are so centrally positioned with your mission and your history and the identity of your board in the center of these issues. But a lot of other museums, are being impacted as well and may things are happening locally or nationally that they think, do

Ann Burroughs:

Yeah.

Elizabeth Merritt:

connect or conflict with their mission and values. Do you have factors you would encourage other directors to consider when working with their boards when they’re deciding whether or not to make a public statement regarding an issue and event, or to take more concrete action.

Ann Burroughs:

That’s such an important question, Elizabeth, because I know that there’s so many of us so many museums of so many of our colleagues have grappled with that, and it’s obvious from you know, it’s obvious from the poll. But you know what? I will start off by saying is that I know that we are in we’re in a position that most other museums aren’t. You know, we’re in a blue state. We have you know, the absolute backing and leadership from our board on this issue. Our community expect it from us, our donors expect from us, our members expect it from us. So we are in a very, very unique We are in a very, very unique position. We also what’s also driving this is that, you know, in 1942, nobody stood up for Japanese Americans when they were incarcerated. So there’s an incredibly strong imperative now to stand up for other communities who are impacted. But that also goes think, for being able to be a voice for those museums who aren’t able to speak up. And I think that we do this also with understanding and the absolute respect that for some museums, they just cannot do this. You know? They don’t have they don’t have the luxury to do this. But I also know that for, you know, for many museums, just business as usual.

Where they are, is can be risky. So I think it’s really, you know, weighing up weighing up what those risks are. You know? Those risks, the financial risks. And clearly, were all afraid of what the consequences would be of the rescission of funding, and we’ve only we you know, now we’ve seen that, and we’ve seen the impact of that. You know? There was that time of sort of paralysis in action, fear, and kind of anger and people speaking out. And for some people, just it has to be business as usual. And I think even for many museums, that is also, an act of courage.

And there also we know that there colleagues and their museums who feel that this is not an issue for them, and we totally we have to respect that. You know, we have to respect that. We’re an incredibly tightly knit community of colleagues across the country, and you know, the last thing that we want to do is ever to spread any kind of divisions you know, amongst ourselves. But it’s that issue of, you know, reputational risk. What does that mean? What if we say something? But part of assessing that risk, I think, all is also is you know, how do we make our communities feel safe?

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when our communities are diverse and when we are divergent, from when we’re diverging from the diversity of our community. So we also have to sort of understanding that risk, but we also have to understand what’s a stake if we take no action.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yes. And I of course, for AAM, that plays out at the national level. How do we make museums feel safe

Ann Burroughs:

Yeah.

Elizabeth Merritt:

in saying what they feel they need to say and having the curatorial and editor freedom to present what they know to be facts or to interpret history in ways they feel are appropriate.

Ann Burroughs:

Yeah.

Elizabeth Merritt:

So you outlined some of the way in which you are in a privileged position of being in a blue state and having a totally supportive board, and yet even your museum is at very concrete risk of both of funding cuts. I know you suffered the loss of the major NIH grant, and you had federal agents, come on to the plaza in front of the Meet Democracy Center because of an event governor Newsom was wringing there. So you still had to be prepared to protect your staff and protect the public in in the face of federal action.

Ann Burroughs:

Yeah. Yeah. It’s been it’s certainly been a challenging time on many fronts, and we’re certainly not alone in this because I think that as you know, as being responsive to our communities, we all feel this. Because, you know, folks in our communities are, you know, are being deeply affected by this. But you know, we’re also a couple of blocks away from the Federal Building in Downtown Los Angeles. So when our city was occupied, when it became a military zone, we were literally at the epicenter of that. And we felt an incredibly strong obligation know, to stand up for the right of freedom of protest and, you know, freedom of speech. But we have come I mean, you know, 75 masked and armed customs and border patrol agents on our plaza was felt like such a violation. You know? So certainly there’s cost. You know? There is not just financial cost, but there really is you know, there’s there are many costs of doing this. But for us, for our trustees, certainly, you know, it’s not an option.

There isn’t an option.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yeah. Yeah. And in in a way, it’s there’s never a situation of no risk. It’s balancing risks. There’s the risk of immediate

Ann Burroughs:

Yes, Yeah.

Elizabeth Merritt:

possibility of being penalized or targeted but then there’s the long term risks. As you said, both into the fabric of the nation itself, depending on the precedents we allow to be set.

Ann Burroughs:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, the risk too also one has to take one’s we have to take our staff the safety of our staff into account, you know, which always has to be our staff and our volunteers. And you know, our visitors. And that always has to be absolutely paramount. So, you know, that’s another thing in this time. It’s another thing that we that I really would encourage you know, folks to talk about their boards with, to talk about their staff, and, you know, to test because testing the pulse is much deeper. Than just, you know, saying what your board wants you to say. Or, you know, testing it with your board. You know, if we are

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yeah.

Ann Burroughs:

fulfilling our role as being hubs in our community, we have a responsibility to our community. And for some museums, our communities don’t want us to be taking any position at all.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yeah. It because it may put them at risk.

Ann Burroughs:

Yeah.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Well, this is a good time. I think this is a great way to queue up, the next section of our of our webinar today, which is, we’re gonna transition to a chance for our attendees to chat with their peers on this topic.

Ann Burroughs:

Yep.

Elizabeth Merritt:

So speaking to you, the audience, we’re gonna break you out into discussion rooms with a couple of questions to frame your conversations, and then we’ll bring you back together, at 02:40 to compare and sense and share thoughts. Now please remember, one rule of future chat, what set in chat stays in chat, Please hold anything that’s shared by your fellow attendees in confidence and don’t keep their remarks with attribution. A couple of notes about the breakout rooms before we start. First of all, we’re sending you out into rooms of eight people, which we find is a good chat size. But for various reasons, you may find yourself in a room by yourself or with only couple of other people. And you can use the join another room feature to move into a room with more people. So encourage you to do that.

Please make sure you enable your mic and video to allow other participants to see and hear you in the rooms. If you’re joining us via a mobile device, you may not support participation with the breakout rooms. It’s just a feature of this platform. If that’s the case, I encourage you to step away and reengage with us at 02:40. Eastern or 11:40 Pacific when we reconvene to share thoughts. So with that in mind, here’s your assignment for the breakout rooms. First of all, when you get into the room, go around the room and make lightning fast introductions. Who you are, where you’re based, and who’s your organization, It’s a bit super short so you have a lot of time to dive into exploring the discussion prompts. And the two discussion prompts are what do you think are the benefits of museums making public statements about current issues and events?

And are there any potential negative effects of museums making such statements to Anne’s point about risk? Hello, and welcome back. While people are trickling back in from the discussion rooms, I want to encourage you to begin to share some of the ideas that surfaced in your discussion rooms by using the chat What do you think are the benefits of museums making public statements about current issues and events? And are there any potential negative effects of museums making such statements? I know it takes people a little while to get their thoughts organized and begin using the chat. So while I’m waiting for that, Anne, you and I were chatting during that break.

About some thoughts you had of how people can maintain their spirit and energy for this work. Would you like to address that a little bit?

Ann Burroughs:

Sure. Happy to. You know, it’s I often find when we have these conversations, they’re just feel so depressing. You know? They just feel so depressing, and but what, you know, what we try to do, what we certainly try to do here and, you know, what I try to do always is to sort of think to sort of find that joy because we forget about that joy. You know, in the time of fear or paralysis or apathy or anger. You know, we always need remember to do that. And, you know, we’re so fortunate here at JANAM because we also you know, we integrate arts and culture into so much of our programming. Our mission our mission really is about the celebration of you know, the diversity of, you know, ethnic culture in in this country. So you know, and culture celebrating culture is so much about joy, and integrating is so much about joy. And, you know, we’ve sort of some of us have coined this phrase of, you know, being joyous warriors or joyful warriors. And I think it’s important. I think it’s important to hold on to that. Because it’s so easy to sort of get mired down in you know, the weightiness of everything that we’re doing.

And feeling.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yeah. And I think it’s important for people to know it’s okay to take a break.

Ann Burroughs:

Yeah.

Elizabeth Merritt:

For your own mental health and well-being.

Ann Burroughs:

Yeah.

Elizabeth Merritt:

And spiritual energy.

Ann Burroughs:

Yeah.

Elizabeth Merritt:

To attend to the what’s going on in the world and know it’s important, but it’s also okay to step away and maintain your mental health so you’re able to come back and reengage. I think everybody should be back from the discussions by now. I just wanted to encourage you to share any top line thoughts you had from your discussions in chat. It’s also an opportunity for you to ask questions of our guest, or me.

And we’ll be watching chat to see if there’s anything you’d like us to talk about. And Tova has noted that one of the benefits is reaffirming institutional values, which is a positive outcome for staff morale. Yes. I think that can be attention, Anne. From what I’ve seen, some museums struggling with is staff sometimes feel very strongly that they want to be seen and affirmed by the museum making a statement. But realizing that the director may be in a position of having to weigh very real risk about what they can say with potential

Ann Burroughs:

Yeah.

Elizabeth Merritt:

concrete pushback from governing authorities or funders. Or legislators.

Ann Burroughs:

Yeah. Yeah. It’s that’s absolutely true. I also I also think, and it’s something I’m very conscious of, is that you know, our staff, we’ve got this incredible team at the museum, and they’re fully they’re fully, fully behind us. But we also have to know that, certainly, in, you know, a blue state like ours and, you know, having been in the epicenter of so much of this you know, the toll on them is incredible.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yeah.

Ann Burroughs:

You know, the emotional toll is incredible. And I think we sometimes, as leaders, forget that.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yeah.

Ann Burroughs:

Or we don’t we have to be sure that we don’t forget that. Let’s put it that way.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yeah.

Ann Burroughs:

You know? And that we think about that in terms of the demands that we make on them.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Well, and I think also thinking about the potential of the staff because it may require the museum to take steps to make sure people feel safe and request and, safe and protected. If

Ann Burroughs:

Yep.

Elizabeth Merritt:

by making that statement, it makes the staff a potential target, whether it’s from online hate or from actual physical risk.

Ann Burroughs:

Right. You know? And our staff certainly here are you know, they’re no strangers. To this. Well, I mean, we’re all strangers to this current context, but you know, during the during the pandemic and the rise of anti Asian hate, You know, this was also incredibly deeply personal for our staff. And, you know, we had threats. We had an online bomb threat, you know, we had members of our community who were sort of physically threatened and, you know, physically attacked. So, you know, it’s,

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yeah.

Ann Burroughs:

and what we’re seeing now is that family members of staff. You know? There’s very there are very, very, very few of us who live in the city a city like Los Angeles are unscathed by this. You know, either it’s friends or it’s family members because we’re all immigrants.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yeah.

Ann Burroughs:

You know? We’re all immigrants. And, you know, when you live in a city that’s as diverse as Los Angeles, the most, you know, diverse in the country, you will know people.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yeah.

Ann Burroughs:

Know? Our communities are

Ann Burroughs:

deeply, deeply affected by this.

Elizabeth Merritt:

I’m noticing that several people have commented on the fact that that that self censorship is a risk in and of itself. And I would just riff on that because, yes, as people are saying, it both takes a mental toll on well-being. To know that you’re censoring yourself or your organization is self censoring. The other thing is I think, again, as a futurist in thinking large scale, we have to think of the cumulative long term effects of self censorship on the nation. Both on our national fabric and about how we tell history and how we promote public discourse. I think it’s very diff it’s very difficult because there are a lot of short term actions that a museum, board or a museum director might decide to take or not take to keep the institution safe, and that is their responsibility. And I and I respect that.

But cumulatively, those individual safe actions might create a very unsafe environment for us collectively.

Ann Burroughs:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, on so many levels. You know, on so many levels. You know, those sorry. Go ahead.

Elizabeth Merritt:

So no. No. No. No. No. No. I was just gonna call out a question from chat that you go first, and I’ll make sure I don’t lose it. Well, Christine is asking one question I do not see being asked here is together as a group could help negate those risks. As I said, no. No. No. There’s more power by working together

Ann Burroughs:

No. Go ahead.

Elizabeth Merritt:

than alone. I think this is an issue that is near and dear to your heart.

Ann Burroughs:

It is. It is. And, you know, in fact, this was at actually something that, Elizabeth and I were sort of chatting about, during, you know, during our time together. And there’s been a lot of conversation about how we about how we support each other.

Know, how we can support each other at the same time as supporting our museums, supporting our communities, being you know, abiding by our missions, following our missions, and, you know, I think that the first thing that we do is sort of just to understand that we are you know, we’re all in this business. And we’re united by, you know, these professional ethics. And we bring the same value system to our work. And it’s those values that guide us, and it’s those values that that keep us here. And I think that we have, you know, an incredibly strong obligation to be able to model those kind of ethical principles.

And, you know, to be able to model, you know, those respectful conversations, in our museums with our staff, you know, across the field with colleagues. And I think that for me, that is always a very, very important starting point. But I think that there are also ways that we can share and support each other because so many museums have we’ve been impacted by the rescission of funding. You know, how do we, you know, how do we ensure that we can keep that pipeline going? Because without that, you know, without that kind of robust fundraising, we can’t do our programming. We can’t keep all of our staff, and we can’t build for our future. But, you know, just from a sort of position of morale, how do we how do we support each other?

You know, certainly, I think for museums who feel know, in the eyes or feel that they are sort of putting themselves at risk. I know there are many museums that are looking at what the legal strategies may be. How do we protect ourselves if we come under attack? You know, how do we protect ourselves if I mean, we’ve already seen what’s happened with you know, funding

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Drying up. Yes. funding streams dying up dying down. Going away.

Drying up, drying up. You know, and we’ve seen how damaging that is to, you know, to our whole field. But how do we support each other in that? And there it just feels to me as though there are these extraordinary

Yeah.

Ann Burroughs:

associations, you know, whether they’re National Museum Association, State associations, local associations. And they’re so strong, and they so made and they’ve really been there for us. But know, one of the things that we take really seriously, and I think that this is a good it’s kind of a good lesson for or something for us all to think about, is that you know, we get so much from these associations if we take if we make use of the opportunities that are there. But part of that is also giving back and how do we do that. And maybe one of the things that the associations can do is be, you know, much more robust in providing these forums for us to share resources, to share conversations, and to be there with each other instead of just having our sort of informal networks, which are important and strong because we seek each other out. But I think we also overlook those who may feel isolated and alone.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

And I would be remiss, and I would be reminded by my government affairs colleagues that I remiss if I did not use this opportunity to remind people that advocacy is a very important for us to work together as a field. And I will just point out that our field wide advocacy has managed to save the funding for IMLS to a large extent. And beat back the proposal to zero it out. So Advice traditional advocacy can still be effective. And I encourage you if you are not already in yay. Hearts and claps. If you’re not already engaged in advocacy, sign up for alerts, you know, get involved in

Ann Burroughs:

Yeah.

Elizabeth Merritt:

advocating at the state level or level, come to Museum advocacy day if you can, but there are other ways to do it at a local level. Your voice can be heard. It’s still a democracy, and we should work that for all it’s worth. You have a specific question directed that you Anne from Mabel Rosenek. Saying, how have you navigated making decisions at the board executive level and making sure staff feel involved and heard?

Ann Burroughs:

That’s a that’s a very, very important question. You know, as I shared in the beginning, you know, in response to Elizabeth’s question about how we’ve worked at our board, we’ve been extraordinarily fortunate. You know, that our board has actually led the way for us and provided this kind of north star of what they want us to do. You know, certainly, our exec our executive level is, you know, fully behind us. I would say certainly our staff is fully behind this. I do worry, though, that it’s very hard if you work in an institution that is taking a stand, and you may be doing that in your own personal life.

You know, I do worry that there might not be that kind of sort of well-being separation that we should all try to cultivate. But, you know, it’s it was not I mean, it was taking this position was not something that we sort of canvassed with all last staff. You know, this was a directive that we got from our board of trustees, and, you know, our responsibility is to sort of implement what their strategic direction is for us. You know, we’ve had conversations with staff. We certainly have about you know, touch points about their well-being and how they’re feeling. And you know, certainly, inclusives, I mean, staff, they determine what programs are.

We say these this is where we need to go. This is the direction we need to go in. But it’s really they who carry the responsibility for you know, planning those programs, shaping them, implementing them, and sort of keeping body and soul together.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Thank you. And I just want to point out that Cecilia and Ariel have dropped links in chat to AAM’s advocacy work and also to an advocacy one zero one getting to know the basics webinar if you would like use that as a way to jump start your advocacy efforts. Well, we’re getting to the point where we should begin wrapping up. And I was wondering, you have any closing thoughts for our participants? Either is there anything that leaped out to you from chat or things that have come up in your mind as we’ve gone through this discussion?

Ann Burroughs:

You know, I would say that our first responsibility as museum professionals, whether we’re in you know, the arts, whether we’re in sciences, or whether in history or culture. Whatever cultural history, you know, is really always to ensure that the way we present our work, the way we present history, the way we present art at the end of the day, it is about presenting a truth and that we have an enormous sense of responsibility, to preserve that truth and to present that truth in a way that is transparent, that’s full in its fullest form, and it’s honest. Because if we don’t do that, then I think that we fall into that you know, we fall into that trap. I mean, it’s that thing of self censorship.

You know, the damages the damages of self censorship both to ourselves, to our institutions, you know, to the fabric of civil society. But I think also it’s goes to the heart of who we are and how our community sees us and how our communities continue to trust us. And if America loses trust in our

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yeah.

Ann Burroughs:

museums, you know, whether it’s through a sort of deliberate attempt through know, policy or just because we are conforming too much to policy directives. We lose an enormous amount. You know? We lose we lose that thread that connects the past with the present and the future.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s important always to, remember what Susie Wilkenning, our research partner for the annual survey of museum goers, reminds us of, which is that a small number of very loud people can warp our perceptions of what the world thinks. And I think it’s important to remember people that these attacks on museum content and museum credibility are coming from a very small number of people who happen to be in positions of power and influence right now. But if we know from the public data, from very recent public data, people overwhelmingly trust museums. That’s nonpartisan trust. Republican and Democrat. People overwhelmingly want the federal government to support museums and provide funding. People overwhelmingly want museums to address hard issues like climate change and do not see them as being inherently biased. So I think it’s inherent it’s good for us to stop and remind ourselves that

Ann Burroughs:

Yeah. Yeah.

Elizabeth Merritt:

upsetting as this is, there are people out there who have our back, and it the majority of people. We just have to figure out how to come together as a field to support each other how to really

Ann Burroughs:

Right.

Elizabeth Merritt:

harness the power of public opinion to speak out to their legislators and say what they want us to continue doing for them, to tell the truth and to tell unvarnished versions of history and to provide facts and real objects and scholarship that they appreciate.

Ann Burroughs:

You know? And it’s that it’s that thing with know, history, art, culture, and science they cannot yield to censorship.

Elizabeth Merritt:

Yes. And I have there

Ann Burroughs:

And they should not yield to ideology.

Elizabeth Merritt:

absolutely. And there are bright moments of hope I know one of the things that made me smile in a dark week was when I was reading about how people the administration had put up QR codes at the National Park Service sites saying, you know, write and tell us what you think should be censored, what upsets you about what’s interpreted here. And apparently, the overwhelming number of people who were writing in were saying, we love National Perks. We love history. These are great. Keep doing it. So it’s like, yay. You asked and people told you, if only you would listen. Well, I want to, wrap up by telling people in the audience something about an opportunity to dive into this topic in more depth. I’m gonna encourage you to register for day one of AM’s virtual museum summit, which will be October 15.

Which will be devoted to exploring mission values and the politics of pressure. It’s gonna kick off with a keynote by the estimable Voule, author of the blog nonprofit AF, offering some hope in face of the challenges nonprofit face, and to your point, trying to help. Us, voyeur our spirits to be able to continue doing this good work, it’s gonna be followed by three case studies. For museums on the front lines who are actually dealing with blowback and figuring out how to stay true to their mission and values and tell the stories they feel they need to tell in the face of those pressures.

And then it will conclude with your choice of online work workshops offering some practical training on values based decision making and on the pursuit of social justice.

We’ll drop a link to the full program in chat both for day one and for day two, which is exploring the next era of volunteerism. So I hope I will see some of you in the virtual room at the conference in October. And thank you so much for spending time with me today and sharing your thoughts with our audience. This is so valuable. And I think you are demonstrating one of the forms of solidarity we can offer each other, which is to be generous in sharing our experience and advice.

Ann Burroughs:

Well, thank you, Elizabeth. It’s been such a privilege It really has been such a privilege to be in this conversation with you.

Elizabeth Merritt:

So thank you very much. And bet is also to all of you in the audience, and I hope you were staying hell healthy and true to your mission and values.