White House humanities, arts panel members quit
WASHINGTON — All 17 members of the White House advisory commission on the arts and humanities, including several from Hollywood, resigned en masse Friday to protest President Donald Trump’s comments on the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va.
The move follows the disbanding of two CEO councils created by the White House after a slew of major business leaders quit this week to protest what they said was the president’s failure to sufficiently condemn the neo-Nazi and other racist groups in last Saturday’s clashes.
The collapse of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities marks the latest break between the Trump White House and the arts community, which had widely embraced President Barack Obama, and marks his further isolation since a combative news conference Tuesday when he appeared to equate the far-right extremists with those who opposed them.
“Reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms are necessary following your support of the hate groups and terrorists who killed and injured fellow Americans in Charlottesville,” the arts group wrote in a letter to Trump. “The false equivalencies you push cannot stand.
“Supremacy, discrimination, and vitriol are not American values,” they wrote. “Your values are not American values.”
In a statement Friday, the White House said that President Donald Trump had decided “earlier this month” that he would not renew the commission when it expires this year.
“While the committee has done good work in the past, in its current form it simply is not a responsible way to spend American tax dollars,” the statement said.
The committee was created in 1982 under President Ronald Reagan and acts as an advisory panel on cultural issues. It is among dozens of mostly ceremonial White House panels that advise the president.
The letter was released Friday morning with signatures from 16 of the 17 members. By afternoon, the 17th member, playwright George C. Wolfe, had also submitted his resignation.
Meanwhile, the CEO of 21st Century Fox denounced racism and terrorists while expressing concern over President Trump's reaction to the deadly violence surrounding a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville.
James Murdoch — the son of the 21st Century Fox’s co-executive chairman, Rupert Murdoch, a Trump ally — also told friends in a personal email that he and his wife, Kathryn, will donate $1 million to the Anti-Defamation League.
Also, the Salvation Army, the American Red Cross and Susan G. Komen on Friday joined a growing exodus of organizations canceling plans to hold fundraising events at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., deepening the financial impact to Trump’s private business amid furor over his comments on Charlottesville.
The exits mean at least seven of the club’s biggest event customers have abandoned it this week, likely costing the Trump business hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue or more.
Los Angeles Times’ Lauren Rosenblatt, Associated Press and The Washington Post contributed.
sameea.kamal@latimes.com