EDITORS' CORNER
OPINION: Yale’s exhibits might be interesting. That does not mean taxpayers need to subsidize them
Taxpayers have been saved from subsidizing niche exhibits at Yale University’s art gallery in recent months.
First, the Yale University Art Gallery lost a $30,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant for an upcoming exhibit on “Six Centuries of Indonesian Textiles.” The NEA under President Donald Trump pulled the grant. The project later received private funding.
Second, probably due to that experience and limits on DEI funding, Yale decided not to ask taxpayers for $200,000 for a fall 2026 exhibit “on the migration of Nguni peoples from southeastern Africa,” according to ARTNews. Officials initially planned to ask the National Endowment for the Humanities and the NEA for $100,000 each, the publication reported.
The art gallery “objects specifically to the grant compliance stipulation that ‘the applicant does not operate any programs promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) that violate any applicable federal anti-discrimination laws,’” according to the Connecticut Insider.
Instead, Yale will take money from its $40 billion endowment to fund the exhibit.
That is great news for taxpayers.
The art gallery looks like a great museum, reportedly containing “over 300,000 objects” “from all regions of the globe.”
But taxpayers do not need to be on the hook for an exhibit that will likely be seen only by New Haven locals and Yale University community members.
That is real money that could better be served for broader purposes.
In the past year, National Endowment for the Humanities’ funding has been hit or miss, according to a brief review of past grants. The government allocated nearly $150,000 to Howard University for a course on “the history of shared Afro-diasporan liberation movements between the Caribbean and the USA.”
It gave about the same amount to Manhattanville University for a “sports studies” course on the “Latinx experience.” On the other hand, the $30,000 spent on studying John Adams and his wife Abigail Adams looks promising.
There are always going to be more projects and ideas worth exploring than there are funds available. Federal policymakers have a responsibility to the taxpayer to ensure the prudent distribution of funding.
Yale’s art museum is correct to reject federal funding and seek private sources of money – if there is a true interest in their projects, then someone will step up and fund it.
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IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: ‘A woman’s skirt,’ set to be on display this fall at Yale University’s art gallery; Yale University Art Gallery
