The complete private membership of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities has resigned. The body, which has not met under the current presidential administration, is intended to advise the President of the United States on important arts and learning-related matters, including funding policies. In the aftermath of the violence in Chancellorsville, VA and the POTUS’ lukewarm response, however, the private members of the committee took matters into their own hands.
The committee members who resigned are Paula Boggs, Chuck Close, Richard Cohen, Fred Goldring, Howard L. Gottlieb, Vicki Kennedy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Anne Luzzatto, Thom Mayne, Kal Penn, Eric Ortner, Ken Solomon, Caroline Taylor, Jill Cooper Udall, Andrew Weinstein, George C. Wolfe and John Lloyd Young. The First Lady of the United States serves as the committee’s honorary chair. The heads of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Library of Congress; the director of the National Gallery of Art; and the chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts also serve on the committee ex officio, and therefore remain on it unless removed by the President.