The Smithsonian’s Board of Regents today released the six-page report of its ad hoc advisory committee on exhibition policy, formed in the wake of the “Hide/Seek” controversy.
Here are the key passages:
The Smithsonian must encourage and provide a forum for dialogue on the important issues of the day. This mandate carries the obligation to produce exhibitions that may be controversial. Topics such as immigration, race and ethnicity, religion, climate change and sexual identity are within the scope of the curriculum and should lead to informed civic discourse….
In the absence of actual error, changes ot exhibitions should not be made once an exhibition opens without meaningful consultation with the curator, director, Secretary [currently G. Wayne Clough] and the leadership of the Board of Regents.
As a guide for dealing with sensitive exhibitions, the committee also endorsed Smithsonian Directive 603 (which I discussed in my Huffington Post report of my interview of Clough)
The “mystery museum director” on the three-person advisory committee, by the way, was Rusty Powell, director of the National Gallery in Washington. That’s keeping things inside the Beltway.
In total, the report seemed largely in accord with Clough’s current position on the “Hide/Seek” contretemps and the path going forward.
UPDATES: Here’s the Associated Press’ report on the press conference that followed the Regents’ meeting, where it was made clear that the board was “standing behind” Clough, despite the call by some demonstrators and critics (with whom I disagree) for his resignation. The Washington Post’s report indicates that Clough “has enormous support from the regents,” who believe that “his broader accomplishments in running the 19 museums and research complex outweighed the uproar over the episode.”